The Long Fall

Jiabao Li Will Tallent Michael Bruner

The Long Fall: A descent into the Ocean’s Living Memory

15 min audio visual performance 

Jiabao Li, Manu Prakash, Will Tallent, Michael Bruner

Plankton—microscopic drifters of the sea—are the unsung architects of Earth’s climate. Invisible to the naked eye, these oceanic cells form a vast, living engine that controls our planet’s carbon cycle. While providing half the oxygen on our planet, silent labor of microscopic life in our ocean also pulls 40% of all carbon we emit as a society into the atmosphere – slowly sinking it into the deep. Marine plankton die, aggregate and sink as billions and billions of marine snow particles impacting planetary carbon cycle; so poetically described as”…the most stupendous “snowfall” the earth has ever seen.” – Rachel Carson (1951)

The Long Fall is an immersive audiovisual journey tracing the delicate threads connecting microscopic plankton to planetary climate. Starting from the iconic White Cliffs of Dover—the largest visible monument of oceanic carbon capture—the audience plunges into a mesmerizing descent, experiencing the Earth’s climate system through shifting scales.

Using datasets from PlanktonScope and Gravity Machine, developed by Stanford’s Prakash Lab, the performance vividly tracks individual plankton cells at microscopic resolution, extending the experience across vast ecological dimensions. Over the last 7 years, 18 ocean expeditions around the world have collected an unprecedented detailed map of dynamics of microbial life in our oceans.

This immersive journey places the audience within the vertical ocean column, embodying the perspective of plankton drifting endlessly downward. This new frame of reference underscores the overlooked significance of these microscopic organisms, which quietly regulate half of Earth’s carbon cycle. Ignoring them in climate models results in an 80-gigaton discrepancy—nearly 10% of the global carbon budget.

The soundscape is composed and performed live, blending low-frequency vibrations that evoke the subtle movements of plankton, bubble-like sounds inspired by photosynthesis, and rhythmic pulses that mirror the endless fall of marine snow. Throughout the performance, the voice of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson interweaves with the soundscape, narrating the interconnectedness of life, the fragile beauty of marine ecosystems, and the urgency of biodiversity preservation.

At the center of the stage, a tank of bioluminescent dinoflagellates serves as a living instrument. A live camera feed captures their glowing responses to movement, merging with AI-generated reimaginings of planktonic worlds. Surrounding this, a “plankton instrument” with 100 responsive pads allows each touch to trigger the descent of a unique plankton species, accompanied by its own distinct sonic signature.