Austen Camille, Erik Cordes, Ph.D., Samantha Joye, Ph.D., Malte Leander, Christine Lee, Rebecca Rutstein

The Immersion Project: Prototype

2023, 3D-printed PMMA, acrylic paint, augmented reality, sound, 48” x 36” x 36”

This is the first prototype of The Immersion Project, a multi-sensory installation developed by a team of artists and oceanographers to educate public audiences about deep-sea ecosystems. The project incorporates large-scale, coral-inspired sculptures, hand-drawn augmented reality (AR) animation, and spatial sound. After a national exhibition tour, the sculptures will be installed in the Gulf of Mexico to help restore coral habitats damaged by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. 

In the age of the Anthropocene, cold-water corals that inhabit the deep ocean have been decimated and continue to be threatened by oil spills, marine heat waves, and trawling, but these incredible organisms play a vital role in the global marine ecosystem. They serve as shelter, feeding, and nursery grounds for a wide variety of species (including some commercially significant ones), and they sequester carbon from the ocean-atmosphere cycle. They also hold a critical, long-term record of oceanic conditions over time. The Immersion Project aims to spark a sense of wonder and build empathy for living creatures who we rarely if ever see, all while physically repairing deep-sea ecosystems. 

Specifically, the prototype’s suspended sculpture, designed by Rebecca Rutstein and Christine Lee, is inspired by a type of cold-water coral called Paramuricea that was especially hard hit by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The AR animation, created by Austen Camille, shows some of the species (such as comb jellies, seed shrimp, and brittle stars) who will repopulate the Paramuricea coral habitat once restoration work begins. All of the paintings in the animation were hand-made by Camille, from direct observation of preserved specimens at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's ocean invertebrate lab. Swedish-French artist Malte Leander contributes sound to the AR experience, evoking the atmosphere of the deep ocean. The entire installation was made in close consultation with oceanographers Erik Cordes, Ph.D. and Samantha Joye, Ph.D. The Cordes Laboratory, which has played a foundational role in the project, will oversee the sculptures' eventual re-use as tools for habitat restoration.

(In the gallery, visitors can access the AR experience by scanning a printed QR code.)

Work produced under this project was supported by the Ocean Memory Project under a grant from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative of the National Academy of Sciences under NAKFI Challenge number NAKFI-CA01. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Ocean Memory Project, W.M. Keck Foundation, or National Academy of Sciences. Additional support from Temple University.