For the aquaponics sculpture Aquaristik 3.0, Markus Wirthmann has connected an aquarium with Mary’s cichlids and two containers of herbs and vegetable plants to a closed water and nutrient cycle. The installation is quite simple: the fish tank and the plain black plastic tubs are held together by plywood. Wirthmann is neither interested in ornamentics nor in the object itself, but rather in the process of its organisation and its maintenance.

Aquaponics is used more and more as an environment-friendly alternative to conventional fish breeding. The vegetables filter the water polluted by the fish. The excretions of the fish nourish the plants. Wirthmann has started developing these at first sight amateruish biological systems already since the 1990s and unfolds their organisation.