Tyler Beatty, Mona Safari, Gavin Tao, Mufaro Mukoki

"Interactions between humans and nature are an essential aspect of this project. It is apparent that the ethical implications of turning animals into living sensors and the impact of human civilization on nature, especially after the Industrial Revolution, are significant. Also, the spatial pattern of human-nature interaction does not remain static but changes over time without a doubt. Direct interactions between humans and nature are critical in numerous ways and are receiving greater attention, particularly regarding the impacts they have on human health and wellbeing (both positively and negatively), people's attitudes and behaviours toward nature, and the benefits and hazards they pose to wildlife. In this context, bringing more awareness and attention to this area is a vital touchpoint that needs to be highlighted. Therefore, we came up with this idea to create a meaningful experience for the audiences of this project, both from a personal standpoint and a collective exploration of experimentation. This concept was developed based on scientific research concerning the particular jellyfish named ""moon jellyfish"", which because it lacks a brain, a central nervous system, and a type of pain receptor, makes it the ideal choice for researchers to perform the experiment on. The research was conducted by ecologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Fisheries Service, who explain their research direction as follows: ""Understanding patterns in the ocean can help us improve our ability to predict the weather. At the same time, we use ocean measurements all the time to help direct marine activities—this could be things like telling fishermen where they’re more likely to encounter species of concern so they can reduce bycatch.” The aim of this project was to make our audiences consider whether being a part of nature or standing away from it is their choice. Further, it is our audience's responsibility to make their own way, either as an individual or in a tribal form of interaction, and to create something unique. We wanted our audiences to walk around and interact with the subject, which is ""The Cyborg Jellyfish"", in a personal dialogue that explores how they could impact nature and its creatures as well as whether they are willing to accept that nature has a profound effect on human civilization in multiple directions and accept that they are just part of it without benefiting from it."