Immersive Ecologies: Sensing the Unseen with Marshmallow Laser Feast

𝗜𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀: 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁
𝟭𝟯 𝗝𝘂𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 (𝗦𝗮𝘁), 𝟮𝗽𝗺 – 𝟰𝗽𝗺
𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗮, 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝟰
𝗧𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: $𝟱
London-based experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) works at the limits of perception, translating complex living systems into immersive experiences where bodies and environments converge.
As ArtScience Museum’s 2026 ArtScientist-in-Residence, Ersin Han Ersin (artist and director of MLF) anchors this residency-focused symposium, centred on two major works presented in the museum’s exhibitions this year: Evolver, featured in Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy, and Seeing Echoes in the Mind of the Whale, developed for Into the Ocean: Journey Beneath.
In his presentation, Ersin will reflect on MLF’s ongoing inquiry into living systems, exploring how immersive technologies can translate non-human perception into embodied experience. Moving between the sonic world of whales and the transformative potential of the human body, these works consider how life is shaped through processes of sensing and relation across species and environments.
Presented as part of Forms of Life: Beyond the Human, the symposium opens this inquiry into a wider interdisciplinary dialogue. Contributing perspectives from oceanography and acoustic research will ground these ideas in the lived realities of marine environments, revealing how ocean life navigates and communicates through sound. Extending beyond the ocean, the programme also draws on microbial ecology and philosophical thought to consider how life operates across distributed networks of sensing and response, and how concepts of interdependence challenge human-centred understandings of the world.
Spanning oceanic, ecological and embodied domains, these perspectives trace a continuum from organism to environment, inviting us to attend more carefully to forms of life beyond our own.
Speakers include 𝗘𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗻 (artist and director of Marshmallow Laser Feast), 𝗗𝗿. 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹 (Associate Professor in History and Religion at SUTD), 𝗗𝗿. 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗷𝗮𝘆 𝗦𝘄𝗮𝗿𝘂𝗽 (Director of NUS Environmental Research Institute and Associate Professor at NUS Department of Biological Sciences) and 𝗗𝗿. 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗶 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝘂 (Senior Research Fellow and Principal Investigator at Acoustics Research Laboratory – NUS).

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗲 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄
2pm – 2.10pm
Welcome and introduction by 𝗭𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗮𝗼 𝗫𝗶𝗻 (Senior Curator of Public Programmes at ArtScience Museum)
2.10pm – 2.40pm
𝗘𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗻 (artist and director of Marshmallow Laser Feast) introduces the collective’s practice of creating immersive environments that translate complex biological and ecological systems into embodied experience. Through Evolver and Seeing Echoes in the Mind of the Whale, he reflects on how artistic technologies can make non-human modes of sensing perceptible, inviting audiences to inhabit perspectives beyond the limits of the human body.
2.40pm – 3pm
𝗗𝗿. 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗷𝗮𝘆 𝗦𝘄𝗮𝗿𝘂𝗽 (Director of NUS Environmental Research Institute and Associate Professor at NUS Department of Biological Sciences) examines how microbial communities and ecological systems function as distributed networks of sensing and exchange. From microscopic interactions to larger environmental systems, his talk explores how life emerges through interconnected processes, revealing intelligence and responsiveness as collective ecological phenomena.
3pm – 3.20pm
𝗗𝗿. 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗶 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝘂 (Senior Research Fellow and Principal Investigator at Acoustics Research Laboratory – NUS) draws on research in underwater acoustics and bioacoustics, exploring how marine life senses, navigates and communicates through sound. His talk reveals the ocean as a dynamic acoustic environment, where species inhabit richly layered sonic ecologies that challenge conventional human understandings of space and perception.
3.20pm – 3.40pm
𝗗𝗿. 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹 (Associate Professor in History and Religion at SUTD) brings perspectives from Buddhist thought and reflects on how perception shapes our understanding of self and world. His talk considers how concepts of interdependence and relational existence challenge human-centred frameworks, offering philosophical perspectives on the entangled forms of life explored in the programme.
3.40pm – 4pm
𝗤&𝗔 with Ersin Han Ersin, Dr. Sanjay Swarup, Dr. Hari Vishnu and Dr. Alastair Gornall, moderated by Zhang Bao Xin

𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆: 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁
Marshmallow Laser Feast (Ersin Han Ersin, Barnaby Steel, Robin McNicholas) joins ArtScience Museum as ArtScientists-In-Residence, bringing their distinctive research-led practice and immersive, multisensory storytelling to the institution. The London based artist collective investigates the entanglements between human perception and the more-than-human world, creating environments in which data becomes tangible, ecological systems become intimate and the invisible processes that sustain life are made perceptible.
Their work emerges from sustained collaboration with specialists, ecologists, neuroscientists, technologists, philosophers, rendering complex systems such as mycorrhizal and vascular networks, cellular respiration and photosynthesis as embodied experiences. Each project unfolds as a space where imagination and information converge, inviting audiences to inhabit perspectives beyond the human and reconsider their place within wider ecological systems.
The collective has exhibited internationally at leading institutions including ACMI (Australia), Barbican Centre (UK), Fundación Telefónica (Spain), Museum of the Future (UAE), Te Papa Tongarewa (New Zealand), Sundance Film Festival (USA) and ArtScience Museum (Singapore). Their works have been widely covered in publications such as The Guardian, Wired, New Scientist, and Creative Review. Their previous collaboration with ArtScience Museum on We Live in an Ocean of Air (2022) laid the foundation for this residency.
During their residency at ArtScience Museum, Marshmallow Laser Feast will present a trilogy of immersive works that reveal the hidden rhythms of our world, from the breath within us, to the echolocating visions of whales, to the living intelligence of soil. Through public engagements and insights with artist and director Ersin Han Ersin, audiences will be invited to step beyond human perception and enter the extraordinary more than human systems that shape our shared planet.