Exhibitions / Oceans of the Unknown
01.08.2016 to 31.08.2016
How do you create an image of something unseen?
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is launched into the waters of Tasmania allowing the sea floor to be ‘swath-mapped’ by sonar and translated into lines to form ‘acoustic images’. Drawing a line becomes a rich field of discussion across disciplines as new technologies provide data in new formats and interpretations. This project is a dialogue between two visual artists and a scientist - a printmaker, a drawer and a marine spatial analyst; each use line to create imagery describing maritime environments. Senior Research Scientist and marine spatial analyst, Dr Vanessa Lucieer from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies uses remotely sensed data to create visualisations to better understand marine environments. She has been in conversation with artist, Dr Jan Hogan and PhD student, Annalise Rees from the Tasmanian College of the Arts who are similarly interested in the role the image plays in communicating ideas about the unseen. Through their respective fields of expertise each of these researchers have been exploring ways in which the image is used to describe and understand the unknown marine environment – that which lies beyond the blue curtain.