Diviners Wanted!
Welcome to our Danube Fortune Telling Workshop, a live and direct fortune reading in real time! Meet the miraculous mussel Woodiana that lives in the river Danube, and become a mussel diviner by interpreting the traces she leaves in the sand on her journey from Vienna to Novi Sad. Let’s enter the world of mussels and their sand drawings, commune with Woodiana and explore the future of the river Danube! You may have played with mussel shells at the beach or eaten them at home or in restaurants, but did you know that mussels are super-filters, nature’s great living water purifiers and magical bioindicators, detecting pollution in water at an early stage. Our Woodiana mussel came to the Danube from far away China to bring us knowledge about possible aquatic futures. With extremely sensitive biosensors, Woodiana senses the composition of the danubian water on a daily basis while she moves across the river bottom. She moves very slowly and carefully beneath the greenish water, leaving long arcing circle trails in the sand like secret symbols. These symbols change across space and time and could give fundamental clues about the Danube’s ecology. What do her secret drawings reveal? Why does she start and stop moving? How could we describe her movement patterns? And most importantly, which external factors affect them? To understand Woodiana and how the Danube could change in the future, we need your help! We need mussel diviners! Come and join us on our quest to understand the Woodiana Oracle, and have your say in the future of the Danube!
The Woodiana Oracle: Diviners Wanted! is a diviner recruitment event and a futuring exercise in the form of a fortune telling workshop; a live online divination event where everybody gets a chance to become a mussel path analyst and interpret her behaviour! No previous experience is needed, just a passion for river ecologies, drawing and making up fantastic stories! Prepare some papers and pens and dive into the Danube in search of the mussel trails! The mussel cooperates with the Danube Transformation Agency for Agency (DTAFA) – an office developing transformative practices, mediating between art and science. The DTAFA supports the Woodiana Oracle with the necessary digital infrastructure to bring her findings and knowledge to a broader audience.
