How much plastic do we consume without even noticing?
Consumer / Consumed is an interactive art installation and game that places visitors in the role of a whale, one of the largest creatures on Earth. The objective seems simple: feed on plankton and survive. Yet in today’s oceans, food is no longer the only thing drifting through the water.
As the player navigates the environment, microplastics appear among the plankton. Similar in size and appearance, they are almost impossible to distinguish from real food. Just as in the real world, perfect choices are no longer possible. Plastic cannot be avoided entirely. The only question is how much of it will be consumed.
During a ninety-second life cycle, players move through the ocean while avoiding fishing nets, discarded waste, and other consequences of human activity. Special abilities such as sonar, magnetic attraction, and burst movement can help them survive, but they do not solve the underlying problem. The boundary between nourishment and pollution becomes increasingly blurred.
At the end of the experience, the system analyzes the player’s feeding behavior and reveals the proportion of plankton versus plastic ingested throughout the game. Rather than measuring skill, the result serves as a reflection on a reality that extends far beyond marine ecosystems. Microplastics are now present in water, air, food, and ultimately within human bodies.
Through play, Consumer / Consumed transforms an invisible environmental issue into a tangible experience. What begins as a simple survival game gradually becomes a broader question. If marine life can no longer distinguish food from plastic, what makes us believe that we are any better off?