Acra, NY–Wave Farm is pleased to announce Lateral Lines, a work led by multimedia artist Marina Zurkow, animal welfare scientist Becca Franks, and Wave Farm’s Executive Director Emeritus Galen Joseph-Hunter, as part of the Simons Foundation’s Triangle Program . This new iteration of the foundation’s Triangle Program is part of their “Infinite Sums” initiative. 

Lateral Lines is an algorithmic radio work that enters the sensory world of carp fish through their lateral line, the sensory organ through which they experience vibration, current and pressure and functions as a sense akin to both human hearing and proprioception. How can we honor and appreciate their perceptual capacities without reducing them to metaphor or generic fish behavior? Built from a database of modular text and sound, each broadcast recombines into a new, tidal iteration. The work treats carp as sensing subjects living within the planet’s thin freshwater film and uses generative audio to explore symmetry, vulnerability and interspecies attention. Lateral Lines will air through Wave Farm’s WGXC, online platforms and the Radia art-radio network.

“Wave Farm is so grateful to the Simons Foundation for supporting this ambitious and multi-faceted project.” said Wave Farm’s Executive Director Emeritus Galen Joseph-Hunter. “Presented as a series of 28-minute radio artworks that take form as a generative Hörspiel, or radio drama, Zurkow’s Lateral Lines wonderfully embodies our organizational mission and vision. Lateral Lines explores radio and transmission as artistic space, and will engage audiences in individual, intimate, and collective experiences via terrestrial radio broadcasts, in-person listening events; and online streaming.”

This work is supported by the Simons Foundation and is part of its “Infinite Sums” initiative. For more information, visit infinitesums.simonsfoundation.org.

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About the Simons Foundation
The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. Since its founding in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the foundation has been a champion of basic science through grant funding, support for research, and public engagement. The Simons Foundation believes in asking big questions and providing sustained support to researchers working to unravel the mysteries of the universe. 

The Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division seeks to provide opportunities for people to forge a connection to science — whether for the first time or a lifetime. Through their initiatives, they work to inspire a feeling of awe and wonder, foster connections between people and science, and support environments that provide a sense of belonging. 

About Marina Zurkow
Marina Zurkow engages with research, speculation, and diverse media (software, animation, food, etc.) to foster intimate multispecies and geophysical connections for viewers and participants. Zurkow works as a founding member of the collaborative initiatives More&More, Dear Climate, The Iceberg, and Climoji. Her solo show Parting Worlds, including the 2025 Hyundai Terrace Commission The River is a Circle, was most recently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Zurkow was part of the Simons Foundation’s 2025 Open Interval Cohort, in development for the Lateral Lines project as part of the 2026 “Infinite Sums” initiative. She was a 2022 fellow at Princeton University’s Blue Lab, and received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Rice University, NYFA, NYSCA, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Creative Capital. She lives in the Hudson Valley, New York, is represented by bitforms gallery, and teaches at NYU.

About Becca Franks
Becca Franks is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University, where she is the Director of WATR-lab and Co-director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program. Bringing an environmental studies lens to questions of animal welfare, her research and teaching explore how science can improve the lives of animals and human-animal relations. She has published over 70 scholarly articles, chapters, and commentaries, specializing in animal behavior, quantitative methods, and aquatic animals.

About Wave Farm
Wave Farm is an international transmission arts organization driven by experimentation with the electromagnetic spectrum. We cultivate creative practices in radio and support artists and nonprofits in their cultural endeavors. Based in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley, Wave Farm is a media arts center, media platform, and arts service organization. Wave Farm offers interdisciplinary outdoor installations, residencies and fellowships, and a research library. We operate FM radio station WGXC and host many online radio channels. Wave Farm provides fiscal sponsorship, consultation, and grants to artists and organizations. For more information, please visit wavefarm.org.