Pearl Hyacinth is the nomadic multiverse avatar of the interdisciplinary artist Melody Owen, who is based in Portland, Oregon. Since 2018, Pearl has built, curated, and made work within existing virtual 3D worlds, much of it developed through practice-based research at the University of New South Wales. Owen's practice spans installation, video, photography, and hand cut collage, exploring technology, ecology, and the voices of animal and insect species.
As Pearl Hyacinth, she has built virtual-world pieces under the title FOXP2, translating the sound waveforms of animal voices recorded during her UNSW research into visual form. One version, showing the waveforms of black swans, was built in New Art City in 2023, while another, using the voices of flying foxes in Sydney, was built on Styly and shown at ISEA Brisbane in 2024.
