PSYCHOSPHERE

Cisternene Installation

16 March - 30 November 2025
Copenhagen, Denmark

Welcome to Psychosphere – a world celebrating the deep sea as our common heritage site for all life on earth – an ecological fabric connecting the psyche of all species across time. Presented at Copenhagen’s subterranean Cisternene, the 4320 square metre former reservoir and dripstone caverns were are filled with water, moving image, sound, music and 40 sculptures suspended from dripstone ceilings. Psychosphere is a place where life’s cadence can be explored.

Here, the ocean's many forms of life intertwine with human technology and presence, as field recordings of deep sea volcanic landscapes merge with manmade musical compositions. Fossils of long extinct sea lilies and ammonites appear alongside living fish species, as well as sculptures of synthetic life forms. The exhibition's title and key concepts were created together with researcher and philosopher Melanie Challenger, as Psychosphere transitions from the inanimate to the animate, into a world where matter, movement and our inner psyche connect.

In the exhibition, deep-sea volcanic landscapes come to life in a virtual interpretation accompanied by a soundscape. Fossils of long extinct sea lilies and ammonites appear alongside living fish species, as well as an unknown form of life – perhaps an evolution, a future being. The ocean's many forms of life intertwine with human technology and presence, as recordings of underwater vents and ocean species merge with manmade musical compositions and sounds of an accordion.

“The voice of the living originated in the deep sea,
Where volcanic vents, under crushing pressure,
Turned Earth's crust into strands of DNA.
Bubbles rose from underwater chimneys,
Organ pipes sounding the heartbeat,
Of our planet’s molten core.

There is something sacred, almost occult,
In the scientific pursuit of life’s origin.
Abiogenesis—life from lifelessness—
Counters panspermia’s cosmic whispers:
That life may have come from celestial sentience.

Psyche was not born from words or thought,
But through interspecies chorus. Eyes, limbs, shifting forms—
Metabolism forging connection,
Movements and bodies shaping the world,
Building cadence before language was ever sung.

Cadence itself makes worlds emerge,
And vanish. To look at the world is to feel it
Looking back.

Once, giant sea lilies covered the ocean floors,
Forests of animal-plants swaying in acidifying seas.
As CO₂ rose, they perished—like coral today—
Extinct for 200 million years,
Their silence echoes in our seas.

The free-floating hyoid bone in your throat
Came from a fish 400 million years ago.
It gave that fish the power,
To open its mouth wide, to swallow prey.
Today, it lets you sing.
You are a fish that learned language—
Turning sound into code, code into song.

And songs rewrote the fabric of reality. Cadence became DNA.
Columns of water carried echoes of pasts,
Into present depths, where time,
Becomes its own dimension.

But now, shipping routes and drilling rigs
Boom in the ocean’s quiet vastness,
Sound pollution shattering the rhythm of life.
The rifts that once birthed volcanic vents,
Are being mined—
To fuel the AI of tomorrow.

Technologies mimic the ancient chants,
The evocations of life.
They are scriptures written in code,
Reality-altering tools,
A new cadence of the world.

In this fusion of song and matter,
Words, codes, and bodies entwine,
With the organic breath of Earth.

An angel, born from an egg in the deep,
Flew through columns of water—
Through red, green, and blue—
To reach the skies, birthing satellites.
From above, they beam back signals
Carried by volcanic beats,
Passing through Earth's molten heart,
We cross through the planetary mantle,
Into Earth.”

Text by Jakob Kudsk Steensen for Psychosphere 2025.

Abiogenesis and the Origins of Life

Within Psychosphere, the theory of abiogenesis is studied: the belief in the origin of life as something that evolving from non-organic matter billions of years ago, under the high pressures and gasses of deep sea volcanoes. This research journey began in 2019, when Steensen befriended marine biologists and technical divers on the small island of Faial in the middle of the Atlantic. Here Steensen was shown where to record rare hydrothermal vents outside of Stromboli and the Azores - shallow enough depths for the human body to enter. To later create Psychosphere in 2024-25, Steensen merged this material together with never before seen material from scientists aboard the REV Ocean/REV Aurora in the Barents Sea. In the Summer of 2024 they discovered a newly found deep sea volcanic landscape with the help of deep sea robotic technology.

Later workings closely with conceptual collaborator writer and scientist Melanie Challenger, the larger question was posed, "What happens when you consider life and our own psyche as being driven by friction and matter?" These sensory memories and materials coalesce in synchronisation with Psychosphere’s manifested framework and immersive journey - 40 sculptures, 8 videos, and an animated light system with corresponding spatial musical composition.

At the heart of the installation stands a singular, freestanding amorphous sculpture - Abiogenesis. The theory of abiogenesis delves into the mystery of life birthing from our deep seas, suggesting that life emerged through a gradual, natural progression—from simple organic compounds to increasingly complex organisms capable of movement, interaction, and eventually, sentience. Abiogenesis also takes its departure from Steensen’s hydrothermal and deep sea scientific material…Steensen using this as key reference material to sketch designs that were then transformed into virtual models and hand sculpted by master palaeontology experts Studio Megaton and 10 Tons in Copenhagen.

Installation Views: Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Psychosphere, 2021. Cisternene, Copenhagen Denmark. Photos by David Stjernholm.

Exhibition Text in danish and english

Installation Views: Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Psychosphere, 2021. Cisternene, Copenhagen Denmark.

Photos by David Stjernholm.

A Spatial Instrument: Sculpture, Light and Sound

Across the chambers of Cisternene, songs and sounds from various ocean species have been integrated thanks to Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Sounds Too Many archive commissioned by TBA21–Academy. Ongoing musical collaborator Lugh O’Neill has created a spatial composition, leveraging the sound archive and my field recordings to also include contributions by the renowned Danish accordion player Bjarke Mogensen. The accordion, originally invented as a mechanical reproduction of breathing, creates in Psychosphere a sense of encountering something alien and nostalgic at the same time.

This sonic material connects to the virtual world of Psychosphere through three distinct series of sculptures—crafted from glass, fiberglass, and resin— that respond in real time and dynamically through interactive light and sound. Orogeny, a limited series of interactive glass sculptures, take their departure from Steensen’s travels to some of the earth’s hottest deserts collecting and scanning ancient rock sediments - ancient vessels of water systems now vanished. Amorphous, an additional limited series of resin and fiberglass sculptures, are an amorphous combination of Steensen’s sketches combine with extinct sea lily specimens that once dominated our ocean floors. Amorphous also being made in close collaboration with Studio Megaton and 10 Tons in Copenhagen to evoke a eco-fiction; combining techniques usually applied to biological model maker, with that of speculative science fiction under the creative direction of Steensen.

Installation Views: Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Psychosphere, 2021. Cisternene, Copenhagen Denmark.

Photos by David Stjernholm.

Artwork Credits

Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Psychosphere 2025

Moving image, spatialised sound, interactive glass, fiberglass and resin sculptures.

Commissioned by Cisternerne, The Frederiksberg Museums Denmark.

Foundational research supported by Gaia Art Foundation.

Production Credits

Direction & Production

Artist & Creator - Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Philosophical Collaborator - Melanie Challenger
Project Producer - Alex Boyes
Installation Producer/Lighting Designer - Andrea Familari
Co-Producer - Liz Kircher
Research Assistant - Chiara Di Leone

Moving Image

Video & Virtual Environments - Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Arctic Deep Sea Recordings - University of Trosmø's Department of Geosciences, Ocean Census/The Nippon Foundation, and REV Ocean/REV Aurora via the EXTREME 24 Expedition.
Mediterranean Underwater Vent Recordings - Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Sound

Sound Direction & Underwater Vent Recordings - Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Musical Composition & Spatial Sound - Lugh O’Neill
Accordion - Bjarke Mogensen
Ocean Sound Recordings - via Sounds Too Many project by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza commissioned by TBA21–Academy.

Sculpture

Direction & Concept Art - Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Specimen 3D Scanning - Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Sculptural Production & Fabrication - 10 Tons & Studio MEGATON
Glasswork - Berlin Glassworks
Commissioned by the Cisternerne, The Frederiksberg Museums Denmark, Curated by Tine Vindfeld.
Foundational research supported by Gaia Art Foundation.

Psychosphere is a virtual world created by Kudsk Steensen using his original underwater recordings from the Azores and outside Stromboli, alongside 3D scanned extinct specimens. Additional deep sea material has been converted by Steensen and developed in collaboration with The University of Trosmø’s Department of Geosciences, Ocean Census/The Nippon Foundation, and REV Ocean/REV Aurora via the EXTREME 24 Expedition. Additional sound material supplied archive of Sounds Too Many project by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza commissioned by TBA21–Academy.

Psyhosphere

PSYCHOSPHERE

Cisternene Installation

16 March - 30 November 2025Copenhagen, Denmark

“The voice of the living originated in the deep sea, Where volcanic vents, under crushing pressure, Turned Earth's crust into strands of DNA. Bubbles rose from underwater chimneys, Organ pipes sounding the heartbeat, Of our planet’s molten core.

There is something sacred, almost occult, In the scientific pursuit of life’s origin. Abiogenesis—life from lifelessness— Counters panspermia’s cosmic whispers: That life may have come from celestial sentience.

Psyche was not born from words or thought, But through interspecies chorus. Eyes, limbs, shifting forms— Metabolism forging connection, Movements and bodies shaping the world, Building cadence before language was ever sung.

Cadence itself makes worlds emerge,And vanish. To look at the world is to feel itLooking back.

Once, giant sea lilies covered the ocean floors, Forests of animal-plants swaying in acidifying seas. As CO₂ rose, they perished—like coral today— Extinct for 200 million years, Their silence echoes in our seas.

The free-floating hyoid bone in your throat Came from a fish 400 million years ago. It gave that fish the power, To open its mouth wide, to swallow prey. Today, it lets you sing. You are a fish that learned language— Turning sound into code, code into song.

And songs rewrote the fabric of reality. Cadence became DNA.Columns of water carried echoes of pasts,Into present depths, where time,Becomes its own dimension.

But now, shipping routes and drilling rigs Boom in the ocean’s quiet vastness, Sound pollution shattering the rhythm of life. The rifts that once birthed volcanic vents, Are being mined— To fuel the AI of tomorrow.

Technologies mimic the ancient chants, The evocations of life. They are scriptures written in code, Reality-altering tools, A new cadence of the world.

In this fusion of song and matter,Words, codes, and bodies entwine,With the organic breath of Earth.

An angel, born from an egg in the deep,Flew through columns of water—Through red, green, and blue—To reach the skies, birthing satellites.From above, they beam back signalsCarried by volcanic beats,Passing through Earth's molten heart,We cross through the planetary mantle, Into Earth.”