Mae Lubetkin, Seafloor Futures

The deep ocean is a digital media environment. This realm exists in our visual reality uniquely through the observation of or involvement within collections of digital media (e.g., imagery, 3D models, maps, etc.) gathered using a variety of “technical prostheses for sampling and sensing."[1] We cannot crawl on benthic floors or swim through the abyssopelagic like the inhabitants do, but still, we can imagine the deep ocean. 

Digital glimpses of these depths have increasingly become "richer"[2] in the sense of picture quality, multi-dimensionality, and detail.[3] However, this vivid  imagery can stagnate in obscure databases and locked scientific articles or become over-aestheticized in mainstream ecomedia. 

Digital reconstructions or 3D models of deep ocean sites are visual tools for environmental observation. In the last few years, underwater 3D perception has advanced significantly to include possible AR developments for immersive observation and robotic navigation.[4] Like most technologies, these advancements are often linked to extractive, exploitative, and military purposes. The first photogrammetric 3D model made in the deep ocean was in 1978 for an oil rig leg repair.[5] Private science endeavors for deep-sea mining exploration also likely use 3D modeling for mineral deposit volume calculations. But the digital 3D ocean model, of course, has no loyalty to its origins.[6] 

Mesh grids and textured digital fragments act as multidimensional yet momentary representations of submerged landscapes. As a static digital object, the 3D model remains a moment in time, devoid of any active physical erosion and biological growth. The deep ocean becomes visually reconstructed into object files that rest in a harddrive or database, understandably empty of the constant dynamics that define this natural environment.

Databases are the symbolic form of our computer age.[7] One might consider the digital items that they contain and accumulate as having no beginning or end, ultimately no narrative.[8] However, it’s this multilinear possibility that brings the database into such relevance: we can decide how to cut a narrative through its many parts, and "the elements of the Ocean database are stories."[9]

Through the creative transformation of 3D reconstructions from seafloor sites across geographies, what stories can be told when we collectively alter the digital deep ocean? How can 3D models, as predominant digital links to the deep ocean, come alive and embody more-than-human lifeways or potential human impacts? In solidarity with the seabed and all who are linked to it, this digital deep ocean intervention acknowledges that there are numerous cultural and ancestral links to these depths without digital mediations. How can we learn from Pacific methodologies of oceanic understanding through involvement and movement within the ocean as we steer our interactions with the digital deep sea?[10] What futures can we collectively speculate for these barely known benthic worlds?

For their 2023–2024 Ocean-Archive.org Digital Residency, Mae Lubetkin invites the ocean comm/uni/ty to collectively envision deep ocean futures through the transformation of seafloor 3D models in their project titled "Seafloor Futures: Science and Fictions in Deep Dimensions." Mae will curate a micro-database of the digital deep ocean on Ocean-Archive.org, which will include: a collection of seafloor 3D models contributed by the broader ocean science community and new models that will be acquired while they are at sea on R/V Atlantis for a research expedition to the East Pacific Rise during the course of the residency.

The ocean comm/uni/ty and the broader public are invited to join Mae, and other guest scientists and artists, for an online lecture on April 10, followed by an online workshop on April 17. In the first session, participants will learn about deep ocean 3D modeling techniques, and the environmental context and characteristics of three selected seafloor sites. In the second session, participants will become collaborators in a collective creative process to activate and envision futures for these three sites. This visioning process will later result in newly transformed 3D deep ocean artworks. Anyone interested in speculative futures and fictions, collective community practice, digital media, 3D modeling, deep ocean science, and underwater imaging is welcome to take part. No experience in ocean science, 3D modeling or 3D design is required for participation in the lecture or workshop! 

RSVP for the first online session on April 10 HERE.

RSVP for the second online session on April 17 HERE.