Sensing Ocean is an interdisciplinary online course that explores the relationship between artistic practice, the ocean and marine sensor technologies from an ecological and critical perspective. The course examines how sensors that register sound, movement and other underwater processes shape our understanding of the ocean.
– More than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans. Yet large parts of the marine environment are difficult to perceive directly, because we cannot simply put our heads underwater to listen and see. Much of what we know about the ocean therefore becomes visible and audible through sensors, data and infrastructures – such as underwater microphones, cameras, sonar technologies, satellite images and maps, says Åsa Stjerna from HDK-Valand, who leads the course.
Aimed at individuals with artistic practice
The course is aimed at individuals with an artistic practice who want to work in an exploratory, project-based and interdisciplinary context. By combining environmental humanities and technology studies with practical elements such as digital labs, supervision and independent work, participants develop their own artistic project.
A common starting point is that sensors and sensor data function as both methodological and aesthetic entry points, whether participants work with sound, moving image, photography, visualisation, installation or performance.
– To get the most out of the course, it is helpful to be interested in developing a project over time, documenting your process and engaging in dialogue with other practices and forms of knowledge. You don’t need to be a technical expert; the course is delivered online and includes guided digital labs as well as artistic supervision and peer feedback.
The course is rooted in Åsa Stjerna’s own artistic practice, in which she has long explored how representations of the ocean are shaped through acoustic measurement technologies. In one of her projects, she has worked with sound recordings from more than 30 hydrophones documenting the underwater environment of the Baltic Sea over time.
– This is important because sensor technologies do not simply record the ocean – they also shape what can emerge as knowledge, sound, image and narrative. The course is an attempt to create a more equal dialogue between marine research practices and artistic practice, where art can contribute something specific: the ability to reveal assumptions, frictions and blind spots – and to create alternative images of the ocean, alternative ways of listening, seeing and understanding what technology makes measurable, she says.
