Iona Scott (aka Discosphaera) is a multimedia artist based in Brighton, UK. Born in London, she left school aged 16 to pursue a BTEC in General Art and Design at Kingsway College before completing a BA in Fine Art Sculpture at Norwich School of Art and an MA in Computer Animation and Special Effects at Bournemouth University.
Scott is well known for her Plankton Light Sculptures, inspired by the Discosphaera Tubifera, a type of single-celled marine microplant – or phytoplankton. The works aim to stimulate a closer connection with the incredible tiny lifeforms, invisible to the human eye and yet responsible for producing approximately 50% of the oxygen on our planet. Through visual and sensory experiences, Scott hopes to raise awareness about the importance of these phytoplankton, using the Discosphaera plankton light sculptures to create a seamless and mesmerising journey from our world, through the threshold into the submarine realm.
Originally created using metal and fibreglass, the sculptures have been recreated in a variety of materials, including paper. For more than twenty years, Scott has continued to develop skills and disciplines of sculpture and stereoscopic 3D animation. This has ultimately resulted in the signature geometric form of the one-million-times-magnified 6ft 'discosphaera' sculpture, as a colour-changing light sculpture linked to a virtual representation of the invisible world they inhabit. In this way, the 3D form is a physical reference to another dimension, represented in animations and conveyed through virtual, immersive and interactive technologies.
Scott’s work is available in many formats to make it applicable in a wide variety of locations. Discosphaera Light Sculptures can be purchased or hired and her animations can be viewed as stand-alone large-scale projections or projected over the Plankton Light Sculptures as an installation. Her animation, 'Deep Sea Discosphaera' is a collaboration with band The Egg, using their track 'Deep Sea', and is an immersive journey into hidden underwater dimensions. The animation can be seen here:
Iona Scott is a resident at the FuseBox in Brighton, a collaborative R&D space that brings creative technology innovators together. As an artist, animator, actor and aerialist, she fuses elements of art and technology through exhibitions and collaborations in a variety of locations, with recent presentations ranging from The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, Brighton Science Festival and Micropia Museum at ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo, to Glastonbury Festival and Burning Man.
Read more about Iona Scott’s exhibition at Micropia Museum here:
In 2001, Scott co-founded Purple Broccoli Theatre in London, a Theatre In Education Company (TIE) established to devise musicals and plays curated to inspire environmental awareness in children and young people through art and drama.
Scott’s work was born into and out of the rave scene in London and San Francisco in the ‘90’s through many collaborations with musicians at that time and the new works continue to bear the same passion of inclusion, empowerment and radical activism through art and music which galvanised a movement. Just as she sought to inspire the club-goers of the 1990s, she remains committed to creating high quality multi-disciplinary boundary breaking beautiful experiences to bring together and inspire all generations, enthralling and uniting people of all ages and backgrounds with the intense and vivid visual beauty of the underwater world.
A final note from Iona:
Much gratitude to all who have supported me in my vision including my family Lucas, Rachel, Peter, Jim, Ned, Maff, Tiggy, Amanda and Marcia Scott, The Tripp family
Frank Bowling & the Peters Family.
Gratitude also to Pete Morris, Jasper Buikx, Sam Gueterbock, Shaun Hunter, Maf 'J Alvarez, Javier Alvarez, Jake Slack, Charlie Holland, Andy Baker and the Residents, staff and MD Phil Jones at The Fusebox in Brighton.
