Offshore 
Worlds


the leviathans we float upon
2023-2024





Moving to the Netherlands fundamentally changed the way I understand the sea. In Italy the ways I would experience underwater environments were mainly through diving, underwater photography and culinary traditions. When facing the turbulence of the North Sea, diving seemed nearly impossible, underwater photography…well sort of useless. I knew that my eyes couldn’t gaze below those brownish waves, perpetually in motion, nervous and restless, as if they concealed a truth of sorts. Secrets below the waves.

I built a hydrophone. If I couldn’t see, I could certainly hear below the surface. I began with what was closer to me, the Rotterdam Port. A cacophony of grinding, screeching, thunder like sounds enveloped the waters of the harbours. Above the surface all was silent, below loud and unsettling soundscapes governed these waters. Voices coming from Leviathans of steel, some of the largest moving things I have seen, I cannot refer to them as objects, they seem to breathe and live. The hulls encrusted with oysters and barnacles, hair like algae drifting along the surface, these ships aren’t objects, they are drifting colonies, carrying both wet and dry cargo. 






The Port is ambiguous and fascinating. Ballast water from different seas converging into one place. Entire worlds, containerised into lego-like towers, where a container of illegal substances could be stacked over a load of teddy bears. It is where all worlds converge, unfiltered. A jumble of everything, before it is sorted into separate realities. I see it as a truth, a raw picture of the world we belong to. 

Post Modern society rests on the shoulders of offshore infrastructures. I always think that these ships and machineries are so large because they are forced to bear the weight of the human world.  

Photo by Gabriele Nasole, containers in Waalhaven, 2023




Akin to sea monsters, the colossal scale and impact of offshore infrastructure remains hidden, existing deep within the ocean, beyond physical and imaginal horizons. I consider witnessing these infrastructures as a sublime-like experience, however they rarely cross paths with the realities they sustain. Tapping into the sonic properties of water, a highly efficient medium for sound transmission, I was able to access and share the acoustic footprint of these infrastructures. These soundscapes embody a belief that is deeply important to me: when trying to understand underwater environments we need to shift perspectives, abandon terrestrial biases and embrace perspectives which are inspired by the properties of water. 
I spent a great amount of time researching the significance of Sea Monster mythologies, and their function in deconstructing complex systems, while inscribing them into cultural realms. Ships, deep sea cables and rov’s often bear the names of mythological figures such as Skylla and Charybdis, Ulysses, in a way inviting us to reflect on what Western society considers to be a worthy inheritor of such archetypal seafaring figures.


Tactile Topographies 

Throughout the harbours of the Rotterdam Port water is gradually forced into highly complex shapes, meant to become interfaces between sea and land. Tactile ceramic maps convey the physicality of these geometric waters. Vertical exagerations of their bathymetry reference the historical depth of these bodies of water, which are archives of human relations with the North Sea. 
















































The materiality of offshore infrastructures is bound to burning temperatures. Ceramics allowed me to explore the nature of humans at sea.

   

The installation Our Monsters is a result of the time I spent around the Rotterdam Port, and of the methods I used to explore and understand this space. A ceramic anchor and chain hang from the ceiling, while a gypsum ship carrying a topography of the seafloor drifts over  the corrugated walls of a container.