About the projects

Everything we know about the ocean is mediated by technology, including software. Ocean data acquired by remote sensing technologies are filtered through software. Software itself is shaped by media before it, which are also historically produced. Present day representations of the ocean, built on data which has been shaped by software, which has been shaped by prior media—including literary representations of the ocean—are therefore influenced by past literary events and forms and contemporary software. Both software and literary texts are active participants in the oceanic imagination and how humans relate to the sea.

Currently, only about 5% of the world’s oceans have been mapped at a high resolution. 19th-century narrative prose works offer insights into the ocean, including “new” bathymetric—seafloor mapping—and geographical data, and have plenty to contribute to today’s ocean mapping efforts. However, it is not enough to put these texts through a machine or have them parsed by an algorithm. These narratives need to be read and interpreted because of the nature and intrinsic opacity of literary language.

Slow reading is required for an equitable representation of the planet that accounts for different forms of knowledge, multiple moments in time (satellite imagery of the planet already does this), and diverse, archipelagic epistemologies, beyond continental hegemonic structures.