Under the Bay
iOS app by Lisa Moren. Entertainment · Lisa Moren
- Store rating
- 5 / 5
- Store rating count
- 2
- Download price
- Free to download
- In-app purchases
- Unknown
- Version
- 1.1
- Listing last refreshed
- 2026-09-18
View the original store listing
Store description excerpt
“Under the Bay” tells the story of a world beneath the surface of the Chesapeake Bay and really all estuaries and oceans. In this augmented reality project a user can point their cell phone at the water — or anywhere in the world — like a microscope and see and hear the hidden invisibilities under the Chesapeake Bay. When they do, a series of stories between humans and non-humans emerge told by the artist Lisa Moren with original music by Dan Deacon. The narrator describes the Chesapeake Bay in both enlightenment and medieval terms where personal observation is intertwined with scientific knowledge unpacking recent political events and arguing for diversity broadly. Some episodes see microbes like faeries and the planet as an ensouled body soaked in a wet film that breaths like a living organism. Other meandering topics include cryonics, meditation, the origins of the Internet, monuments, protests, US elections, and algae blooms all describing a world out of balance. Underwater sensors located throughout the Chesapeake Bay collect data on the water’s oxygen and salt levels, pH, temperature, etc. This live data streams into the app allowing the stories, images, and electronic music to be driven by the current conditions of the Bay water. The data from the Bay will direct how the organisms appear and how the story is told. In addition to affecting the animation’s speed and color, originally composed music will change volume, reverb, EQ, and other parameters, based on the water conditions. For example, the narrator's voice will sound choppy, or even choking, when the oxygen is low or anoxic, but when oxygen conditions are good, the voice is clear. Behind the scenes, marine biologist, Dr. Tsetso Bachvaroff, shares his expertise on the Bay water, its data, and the DNA of the invisible organisms. Dinoflagellates and diatoms produce most of the world’s oxygen and are the ancestors of humans for hundreds of millions of years. Before they outlive humans, they reveal their remarkable survival strategies to us and inspire how we may learn to live in this project. Viewers may select one of 8 scenes with images and sounds evolving each time they open the app. In the evening the app offers originally composed music and animation inspired by bioluminescence that’s also affected by the incoming water data. A calendar will allow the user to go back in time to hear what the Bay was saying on a particular date, perhaps during an algae bloom. The user may also change sites in the Bay or turn off the data altogether to experience different effects. “Under the Bay”, tells a unique story for every user, changing over time, over seasons, but always influenced from the viewpoint of the water itself. TEAM Lisa Moren, Artistic Director + Script Writer Dr. Tsvetan Bachvaroff, Marine Biologist, Data Analysis Dan Deacon, Electronic Composer Marc Olano, Software Engineer + Developer John Boutsikas, Lead Programmer Austin Samson, Modeler + Animator William Forrest, Ani
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