Conceptual Transplants for the Deep Ocean : Arts&Science's Materials, Methods and Social Empowerment

On the edge of aesthetic experience and theoretical concepts, our contribution proposes to reflect through transdisciplinarity, artistic practice and fieldwork, on the social and scientific impacts of rigorous research-creation in the “arts and sciences” concerning the deep ocean. An often catch-all notion, the "arts and sciences" approach promises as much as it can disappoint, and demands to be analyzed, reformulated, experimented with, manipulated and perhaps transplanted. Coral transplantation is an interesting analogy for thinking about the regeneration of biodiversity in interdisciplinary and multispecific terms. By resituating research-creation within the ongoing environmental catastrophe, can we regenerate biopsychic richness through the skillful and inventive practice of "conceptual transplantation"? Transplantation stands as the epistemological and practical foundation of a common research ground, where transdisciplinarity is not simply an added value, but a condition of possibility.

We represent a collective body of 12 artist-researchers experienced in the "arts and sciences" collaborations, from different artistic disciplines, working together to trigger a social imaginary of the deep ocean. Cosmic imaginaries have been nourished by a century long background of cultural productions in the West (literature, cinema, …), however the deep ocean seems to have inspired very few in comparison, hence leaving the field open to contemporary more predative imaginaries of exploitation (deep sea mining...). We produced a guideline of materials and methods for arts&sciences in the deep ocean in order to empower the creativity within the scientific disciplines. Our goal is to participate in filling the gap in Western social imaginaries, hence encouraging new interest, curiosity and care for these most mysterious zones of our planet often considered as dark void or morbid deserts.

Questioning the deep ocean and the political stakes and perspectives it assigns to the academic and artistic debate, this contribution reflects on aesthetic practices which, at the junction of the art sciences and the hard sciences, are likely to provide answers and/or suggestions to a major social issue on the horizon of the One Ocean Science Congress.