Deepwaters of Digital Oceans (DODO)
Design: Lana Jerichová.
TBA21–Academy
Research
Programming
Deepwaters of Digital Oceans (DODO) is a week-long research-based series of events focused on engagement with exponential technologies through the prism of the Ocean. DODO operates on the intersections of art–technology–science–society and houses investigations around three clusters: AI, virtual realities, and blockchains. With an emphasis on multidisciplinarity, innovation, and regenerative solutions, we intend to establish new proposals for the blue world through three hybrid formats: workshops, a symposium, and a Hackathon.
DODO wants to connect & inspire, learn & unlearn, create & share
Why deepwaters?
Deepwaters are dark, vast, and elusive. What is hidden within?
Immersing ourselves in the deep, we as humans enter a different world: one that hinders our terrestrial sense of perception. This experience of the unknown can help us dislocate from our anthropocentric views and call into question our very patterns of thinking.
Deepwaters are the ultimate space of imagination, offering an experience of absolute and radically unknown darkness. They serve as a medium of interconnectedness and invite us to dive into limitless possibilities through shared creativity.
Diving into deepwaters, our bodies become interfaces.[1] Through an oceanic lens, an interface is more than just a computer screen – it is a complex and cumulative effect of networks, transmissions, decisions, and information that gives possibilities for understanding dependencies. In a time of increasing awareness of more-than-human intelligence, we need to find new ways of interactivity to nurture reciprocal relationships with the inhabitants of this world.[2]
Oceanic thinking is potent and creative. The Ocean is more than a repository of the past: it is a source of resilience, “with evolutionary processes seeded by a library of every good idea that has ever been or will be.”[3] An oceanic perspective can be fundamental in expanding the possibility of claiming political and climate justice. The future and present are intertwined within a whirlpool of thoughts, experiments, and experiences; thinking for the future starts from the bottom, from the abyss of the Ocean. We need to face the biases of our complicated and complicit pasts and start answering to the present that needs our action, attention, and perpetual care.
How to evolve a digital organism for a living ocean?
Digital media are bodies that enable the creation of complex scenarios and hyperreal simulations. Through data landscapes, we are capable of transporting ourselves into completely new environments, situations, and capacities. To foresee new realities of the digital Ocean, we must re-imagine our conception of the Ocean itself. Our goal is to enter a state of the deep mind – a collective, interplanetary mind – the ultimate space of imagination. In this subversive mindset, we can collectively hack the question “How to evolve a digital organism for a living Ocean?”. Can we imagine new relations of co-existence between human and non-human entities, both digital and non-digital?
DODO consists of three event formats and three technology clusters for a truly multidisciplinary view and insights into research technologies.
DODO wants to connect & inspire, learn & unlearn, create & share
Why deepwaters?
Deepwaters are dark, vast, and elusive. What is hidden within?
Immersing ourselves in the deep, we as humans enter a different world: one that hinders our terrestrial sense of perception. This experience of the unknown can help us dislocate from our anthropocentric views and call into question our very patterns of thinking.
Deepwaters are the ultimate space of imagination, offering an experience of absolute and radically unknown darkness. They serve as a medium of interconnectedness and invite us to dive into limitless possibilities through shared creativity.
Diving into deepwaters, our bodies become interfaces.[1] Through an oceanic lens, an interface is more than just a computer screen – it is a complex and cumulative effect of networks, transmissions, decisions, and information that gives possibilities for understanding dependencies. In a time of increasing awareness of more-than-human intelligence, we need to find new ways of interactivity to nurture reciprocal relationships with the inhabitants of this world.[2]
Oceanic thinking is potent and creative. The Ocean is more than a repository of the past: it is a source of resilience, “with evolutionary processes seeded by a library of every good idea that has ever been or will be.”[3] An oceanic perspective can be fundamental in expanding the possibility of claiming political and climate justice. The future and present are intertwined within a whirlpool of thoughts, experiments, and experiences; thinking for the future starts from the bottom, from the abyss of the Ocean. We need to face the biases of our complicated and complicit pasts and start answering to the present that needs our action, attention, and perpetual care.
How to evolve a digital organism for a living ocean?
Digital media are bodies that enable the creation of complex scenarios and hyperreal simulations. Through data landscapes, we are capable of transporting ourselves into completely new environments, situations, and capacities. To foresee new realities of the digital Ocean, we must re-imagine our conception of the Ocean itself. Our goal is to enter a state of the deep mind – a collective, interplanetary mind – the ultimate space of imagination. In this subversive mindset, we can collectively hack the question “How to evolve a digital organism for a living Ocean?”. Can we imagine new relations of co-existence between human and non-human entities, both digital and non-digital?
DODO consists of three event formats and three technology clusters for a truly multidisciplinary view and insights into research technologies.
Technology clusters and focal points
AI, machine learning, open source
The Ocean needs our attention as never before. Through hive minds and collective intelligence we can think of better scenarios to support blue planetary ecosystems. We have never been closer to understanding the processes and forces of our planet, but with more knowledge comes greater responsibility – and complexity. With the ongoing development of technology, there is a dangerous possibility that data not only expand horizons but also reduce them. To influence and merge the development of collective and artificial intelligence seems to be essential, towards a new cooperativism for an alternative blue future.
Blockchains & DAOs
The narratives, concepts, and frameworks of the human mind are rhizomatic, contextual, and reproductive. We see a new collaborative space for collective intelligence at the end of great narratives, as local mindsets and circular behaviors are on the rise. Decentralized ledger technologies create trajectories of alternative scenarios, unexpected gameplays, and viral frameworks. We can dive into the sphere of algo-mystical realities to reproduce hybrid experiences. However, we must also protect ourselves from the narrative of never-ending potential to disrupt the world through exponential technologies. Questions of commons, collaboratives, and de-institutional practice arise to help reframe our awareness to what’s at risk from a blue world perspective.
Virtual Oceans – Immersive experiences
The globe, the blue planet, defines the realities into which we are built. We can plan and project through imagination and collective synthesis, designing frameworks, and unlearning. Empathy and closeness are key elements of desirable future scenarios. Can we get closer through virtual experiences? How to extend beyond the physical? How to imagine the unknown spaces that are inaccessible to us? Can we open a shifted understanding and reset our perception through virtual experiences of oceanic feeling and blue perspectives?
AI, machine learning, open source
The Ocean needs our attention as never before. Through hive minds and collective intelligence we can think of better scenarios to support blue planetary ecosystems. We have never been closer to understanding the processes and forces of our planet, but with more knowledge comes greater responsibility – and complexity. With the ongoing development of technology, there is a dangerous possibility that data not only expand horizons but also reduce them. To influence and merge the development of collective and artificial intelligence seems to be essential, towards a new cooperativism for an alternative blue future.
Blockchains & DAOs
The narratives, concepts, and frameworks of the human mind are rhizomatic, contextual, and reproductive. We see a new collaborative space for collective intelligence at the end of great narratives, as local mindsets and circular behaviors are on the rise. Decentralized ledger technologies create trajectories of alternative scenarios, unexpected gameplays, and viral frameworks. We can dive into the sphere of algo-mystical realities to reproduce hybrid experiences. However, we must also protect ourselves from the narrative of never-ending potential to disrupt the world through exponential technologies. Questions of commons, collaboratives, and de-institutional practice arise to help reframe our awareness to what’s at risk from a blue world perspective.
Virtual Oceans – Immersive experiences
The globe, the blue planet, defines the realities into which we are built. We can plan and project through imagination and collective synthesis, designing frameworks, and unlearning. Empathy and closeness are key elements of desirable future scenarios. Can we get closer through virtual experiences? How to extend beyond the physical? How to imagine the unknown spaces that are inaccessible to us? Can we open a shifted understanding and reset our perception through virtual experiences of oceanic feeling and blue perspectives?
Formats and stages
Workshops
Date: November 30 – December 2, 2022
Location: Linz, Austria
On invitation only.
Three intensive in-person workshops held by invited artists, scholars, and researchers, conducted to create multidisciplinary teams for mutual learning. The expected outputs of the workshops are online projects in the form of blogs, web presentations, application proposals, as well as speculative future scenarios. Some of the workshops results will be presented and discussed during the DODO symposium (December 5–7).
Workshop 1: Creative AI & Ocean
Workshop 2: Blockchain and DAO for the art world
Workshop 3: Virtual (hybrid) spaces – Virtual realities, synthetic tools, and artistic loops
Hackathon
Date: December 3–4, 2022, Saturday 10am CET - Sunday 6pm CET
Location: online, Zoom and ocean comm/uni/ty
Who can apply?
We are interested in collaborators who are thrilled by describing, analyzing, or influencing the complex interplay of technology, humankind, and the environment; and who wish to envisage new realities and futures in the digitized era. In short, those who dare to disrupt the established frameworks and practices.
Sign up
Symposium
Date: December 5–7, 2022, each day at 6pm CET
Location: online via Zoom or livestream
Open to the public
DODO is designed as a research event. The symposium hosts panel discussions on advances in the field, good practices, and the possibilities of transdisciplinary collaborations. The symposium serves as a pool of thoughts to present findings and formulate proposals on how to care for and protect the blue world.
DAY 1: Virtual Ocean, December 5, 6–8 pm CET
DAY 2: Creative AI & Ocean, December 6, 6–8 pm CET
DAY 3: Blockchain, December 7, 6–8 pm CET
Workshops
Date: November 30 – December 2, 2022
Location: Linz, Austria
On invitation only.
Three intensive in-person workshops held by invited artists, scholars, and researchers, conducted to create multidisciplinary teams for mutual learning. The expected outputs of the workshops are online projects in the form of blogs, web presentations, application proposals, as well as speculative future scenarios. Some of the workshops results will be presented and discussed during the DODO symposium (December 5–7).
Workshop 1: Creative AI & Ocean
Workshop 2: Blockchain and DAO for the art world
Workshop 3: Virtual (hybrid) spaces – Virtual realities, synthetic tools, and artistic loops
Hackathon
Date: December 3–4, 2022, Saturday 10am CET - Sunday 6pm CET
Location: online, Zoom and ocean comm/uni/ty
Who can apply?
We are interested in collaborators who are thrilled by describing, analyzing, or influencing the complex interplay of technology, humankind, and the environment; and who wish to envisage new realities and futures in the digitized era. In short, those who dare to disrupt the established frameworks and practices.
Sign up
Symposium
Date: December 5–7, 2022, each day at 6pm CET
Location: online via Zoom or livestream
Open to the public
DODO is designed as a research event. The symposium hosts panel discussions on advances in the field, good practices, and the possibilities of transdisciplinary collaborations. The symposium serves as a pool of thoughts to present findings and formulate proposals on how to care for and protect the blue world.
DAY 1: Virtual Ocean, December 5, 6–8 pm CET
DAY 2: Creative AI & Ocean, December 6, 6–8 pm CET
DAY 3: Blockchain, December 7, 6–8 pm CET
[1] Melody Jue, Wild Blue Media: Thinking through Seawater, Duke University Press, p. 37.
[2] In the words of the renowned science and technology scholar Donna Haraway, we are becoming cyborgs to experience, accept and learn from surroundings and species, that coexist around us but were never before accessible to us.
[3] Shanee Stopnitzky: Ecological Recovery as Blue Agency, https://ocean-archive.org/story/ecological-recovery-as-blue-agency.
[2] In the words of the renowned science and technology scholar Donna Haraway, we are becoming cyborgs to experience, accept and learn from surroundings and species, that coexist around us but were never before accessible to us.
[3] Shanee Stopnitzky: Ecological Recovery as Blue Agency, https://ocean-archive.org/story/ecological-recovery-as-blue-agency.