Private Project

The Bone 2.0.1

The Bone is an interactive experience in virtual reality inside the skull of a wild salmon, where certain elements and narrations are to be discovered. Profoundly inspired by Dr. Martin Lee Mueller’s book Being Salmon, Being Human, these narrations address ethical and ecological issues related to salmon farming, domestication and coexistence with this species, from a non-anthropocentric, eco-philosophical and indigenous perspective.

  • Michelle Marie Letelier
    Director
  • Martin Lee Mueller
    Writer
  • Daniela Arriado
    Producer
  • Diana Schniedermeier
    Producer
  • Ánde Somby
    Key Cast
    "Yoik singer"
  • Martin Lee Mueller
    Key Cast
    "Salmon's voice (english)"
  • Nicolás Lartaun
    Key Cast
    "Salmon's voice (spanish)"
  • Michelle Marie Letelier
    Lead Artists
  • Robert Werner
    Lead Artists
  • Christian Rambow
    Lead Artists
  • Artificial Rome
    Key Collaborators
  • Ina Krüger
    Creative Directors
  • Dirk Hoffmann
    Creative Directors
  • Dennis Timmermann
    Programming
  • Torsten Sperling
    Programming
  • Christian Barth
    Sound Design
  • Julian Ferreira da Silva
    Sound Design
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    El Hueso 2.0.1
  • Project Type:
    Virtual Reality, Installation
  • Minimum Runtime:
    10 minutes
  • Maximum Runtime:
    18 minutes
  • Average Runtime:
    18 minutes
  • Variable Runtime Details:
    The floating otoliths inside the skull are interactive elements. Their interactivity depends on the viewers head position, which is marked by a point in the middle of the eye's direction.
  • Completion Date:
    October 15, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    30,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Language:
    English, Spanish
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Screen City Biennial 2019
    Stavanger
    Norway
    October 21, 2019
    Europe premiere, version 1.0
    Commissioned artwork
  • VRHAM! Festival 2020 - Museum of Other Realities
    Online
    June 17, 2020
    Online premiere, version 1.0
    Official selection
  • Ultramarin - Stanislavsky Electrotheatre
    Moscow
    Russian Federation
    March 17, 2021
    Russian premiere, version 2.0
    Official selection
  • The Arctic Arts Festival - I am a Multitude
    Harstad
    Norway
    June 24, 2021
    Premiere installation The Bone 2.0
    Official selection
Director Biography - Michelle Marie Letelier

Michelle-Marie Letelier (Chile, 1977) lives and works in Berlin.

She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the Universidad Católica de Chile in 2000 and has participated in postgraduate programmes such as Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt art IT (Berlin) and as guest student in the Experimental Media Design studies at the Universität der Künste (Berlin).

Her work has been shown internationally in biennials, galleries, museums and institutions, among others: Tabakalera (San Sebastián); Kunstmuseum Bonn; Gropius-Bau (Berlin); Screen City Biennial 2019 (Stavanger); Bienal Sur 2017 (Buenos Aires); El Museo de Los Sures (New York); Kunsthall 3,14 (Bergen); Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (Santiago); Museum of Contemporary Art (Santiago); East Asia Contemporary Art Space (Shanghai); Museo de Bellas Artes (Santiago) and Kommunale Galerie Charlottenburg (Berlin).

Her videos and VR have been exhibited in international screenings and festivals, including: The Arctic Arts Festival 2021 (Harstad); Videonale.18 (Bonn); VRHAM! Festival 2020 (online); WE ARE OCEAN 2019-2021 (Berlin and Marseille); 5th Mercosur Biennial (Porto Alegre) and X Video and Media Arts Biennial (Santiago).

Letelier has obtained grants from the Ministry of Culture & Arts - Government of Chile; KORO - Public Art Norway; Goethe Institut Chile-Canada-Norway, IFA-Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and Berliner Senate in Germany.

She has been a resident at ISCP (NYC, 2014), USF (Bergen, 2017), Kunstnerhuset (Svolvær, 2018), Magallanes2020 (Punta Arenas, 2018), ISLA (Antofagasta, 2018) and Troms fylkeskultursenter (Tromsø, 2019).

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Michelle-Marie Letelier was born in 1977 in Rancagua, Chile. She currently lives and works in Berlin.

Her multimedia installations, photographs, videos, drawings and objects embrace orchestrated transformations of natural resources, alongside extensive wide-ranging, interdisciplinary research into the landscapes where their exploitation and speculation take place. Through her work, she places together different epochs, regions and societies, examining political-economic, historical and cultural aspects.

Michelle-Marie Letelier spent her early life in Chuquicamata, a space of copper deposits in the middle of the Atacama Desert of mined since pre-Hispanic times, annexed by Chile in the Saltpetre War (1879-84), and home to the largest copper mine in the world. When the town was to be buried due to new mining policies, Letelier returned to document this process—a pivotal moment that ushered in her practice.

Since establishing in Berlin in 2007, she has been particularly invested in examining five resources: coal, copper, saltpetre, wind and, more recently, salmon, in order to create a poetic work applying their properties - such as electrical conductivity, crystallisation and agency. In her practice, she experiments with chemical and physical transformation processes that produce the artworks themselves, as well as their poiesis, beyond the extractive industry and its forms of control.

The work of Michelle-Marie Letelier carries heavy socio-political overtones; it is eloquently reflective especially in times of unveiled globalisation, the increasing scarcity of raw materials and the crisis of the neoliberal model.