Pan O Rama was originally a four sided public art work for a disused Fire brigade Tower in Maastricht, and portrays a pneumatic ‘soft-robotic’ octopus, rhythmically moving behind the glass of the modernist cube at the top of the tower. It resembles the unique Pacific Striped Octopus, which lives at the base of the Escondido River that runs through El Rama, Nicaragua, Maastricht's twin town. First documented over forty years ago, this intelligent creature has hidden away from science until recently and is a celebration of nature outsmarting humans. Olde Wolbers created a lo-fi ‘animatronic’ version of this elusive cephalopod in her studio, inspired by the latest developments in soft-robotics such as Lewis and Wood’s ‘Octobot’, with its medical and rescue potentials. The tentacle segments of Olde Wolbers creature are connected via micro tubes to four trumpets. They are powered by air-filled syringe valves played by four operators. Cameras filmed each corner of the aquarium in real-time, creating a realistic yet refracted sense of space in the ‘water filled tower’. The studio recordings alternate with sonar footage recorded on the Maas, revealing submerged traces of an industrial past. These sound waves, translated to moving image, relate to symbolic geographical locations where two rivers become one.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35716