Remote Sensing the Arctic Ocean: An Exploration of the Alien Ecological Perspectives of Machines

Abstract:
My paper will take the form of a live online artistic research presentation. I will share an ongoing project, which speculates on the ability of the electronic visions of remote sensing technologies to disrupt and expand prevailing environmental discourse. Project outcomes—spanning digital imagery and animations generated from remote sensing data, surreal artifacts, and immersive soundscapes—will be presented in tandem with contextual research.

As we come to increasingly rely on synthetic machine senses to understand, interact with, and make decisions about the planet, I ask: what does it mean to outsource our senses? Could the non-human ecological perspectives of these technologies offer new ways of encountering environments—far beyond the reach of our own sensory capacities—and in turn inspire new trajectories for more sustainable and imaginative future developments?

I will begin by offering some context on the history of remote sensing technologies and their current applications. From satellites, to ground sensors and floating probes, weather balloons, underwater hydrophones, sonar and radar systems—distant regions like the Arctic Ocean are increasingly wired up and digitized. This is where my investigation is sited, in the inhospitable landscapes of the far north, a region fraught by warming temperatures and rising geopolitical tensions. It’s a region that few have encountered in person, instead reliant on sensing infrastructures to siphon data from their surroundings and transmit digital fragments of the landscape across the globe.

In this context, I explore the possibilities of using (and mis-using) remote sensing technologies to generate new ways of materialising distant landscapes and ecologies—experimenting with Arctic data and machine vision to invoke new relationships between humans, ecologies, and machines.

Session:
Sensorium