The video for the single “Plankton Blues,” from the album Eco Trip, co-written with Fabio Musta, has been released.
The video was filmed entirely in Cilento, in the premises of the Museo Vivo del Mare / Living Museum of the Mediterranean Diet in Pioppi (Pollica, Salerno) and, outdoors, in Ogliastro Marina (Castellabate, Salerno), near Punta Licosa.
Plankton Blues tells the story of a scientist's fascination with the spectacle of marine microorganisms. Asleep on a carpet of Posidonia oceanica leaves , Doc Domi dreams of his alter ego who, twenty years earlier, entered an aquarium and embarked on a journey that led him from observing larger animals, like fish, to exploring the microworld of plankton through a microscope.
The song's refrain ("What lights up the sea?") is a clear reference to bioluminescence, the ability of some marine organisms, such as plankton, to produce blue light through a chemical reaction. Nighttime sightings of bioluminescence, especially during the warmer seasons, are increasingly frequent in southern Italy; although, as the song itself suggests, they're easier to observe on moonless nights, like those surrounding the release of this video.
The "Plankton Blues" video was co-funded by the ERMES Social Promotion Association, while the song, like the album from which it is taken, received co-funding from ASLO – Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, a leading international scientific association in the communication of aquatic sciences. The video is also supported by Legambiente ONLUS, which manages the Pioppi museum. "Plankton Blues" includes micro-naturalistic footage produced by Christian Sardet (CNRS, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France), Sharif Mirshak, and Noé Sardet (Parafilms) as part of "Plankton Chronicles," a communications spin-off of the international ocean exploration project "Tara Oceans."
Plankton Blues strengthens the connection between hip hop and science communication, within an international context of cultural and media fusion, a field in which Campania is increasingly leading the way at the national level. This is also thanks to the partnership between Doc Domi, aka Domenico D'Alelio (originally from Chiusano di San Domenico, Avellino), one of Italy's leading experts on plankton ecology and a collaborator with the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, and Fabio Musta, aka Fabio Orza (originally from Sarno, Salerno), one of Italy's leading urban music producers.
