Austen Camille, Erik Cordes, Ph.D, Samantha Joye, Ph.D, Malte Leander, Christine Lee, and Rebecca Rutstein, detail view of The Immersion Project (prototype), 2023, in the exhibition Seeing the Anthropocene at Tiger Strikes Asteroid..
The Immersion Project is a concept originally conceived in 2018 to create a large-scale immersive and interactive land-to-ocean art installation, inspired by the hidden worlds in deep ocean environments, a place that is distantly removed from our everyday experience yet vitally necessary for life on earth, and in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that created extensive damage to the deep-sea cold-water corals, which sequester carbon, recycle nutrients, and provide habitat for countless species of marine life.
The dual role of the Immersion Project is as a modular, multisensory art installation, combining sculpture, augmented reality and sound to create connections between the viewer and the deep ocean environment, and as a submerged artificial reef to help propagate new coral growth and provide habitat for marine life through the placement of sculptural modules on the ocean floor. With an exhibition followed by the deployment of the sculptural modules in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico led by an experienced science team, The Immersion Project is designed to resonate beyond aesthetics, by helping to restore parts of the damaged coral reef system caused by climate change and human borne impacts.
The Immersion Project
(prototype), 2023
In 2023, the first prototype was developed with collaborators Austen Camille, Malte Leander, Rebecca Rutstein, and I, with oceanographers Erik Cordes, Ph.D. and Samantha Joye, Ph.D. It incorporated a large-scale coral-inspired sculpture, augmented reality animation and sound into a multi-sensory installation to educate the public about deep sea ecosystems. Funded by a seed grant from the Ocean Memory Project, it was on view November of 2023 in the exhibition Seeing the Anthropocene, curated by Julia Clift, at Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia.
The Immersion Project
(permanent installation) 2024
The following year we were commissioned to develop a permanent installation for the Mississippi Aquarium in Gulfport, resulting in an interactive installation that combined intertwined 3D printed coral sculptures, an augmented reality feature of hand-painted and animated deep-sea species and composed deep-ocean soundscapes heard over twenty loudspeakers, to create an immersive experience for visitors. This installation was made possible by funding from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, NOAA, and the US Department of Interior, and was unveiled to the public in December of 2024.
This project is ongoing; updates will be posted here as it develops.