Ocean Energies: Transitions Across Art, Science, and Technology
PhD dissertation, 2026

In “Ocean Energies,” I investigate how energy companies, ocean scientists, and contemporary artists imagine the energy transition through the ocean. I explore offshore geothermal-, tide-, wave-, and thermal energy technologies recently tested across four sites in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans alongside local artworks and natural-historical archives. By framing the ocean as unknown territory and untapped resource, the blue economy discourse treats the energy transition as an occasion for further ocean exploration and development. Drawing on fieldwork and Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS), I argue that disregarding historical relations to oceans perpetuates violent legacies specific to each of my research sites: extractive visualization, logistical prediction, transatlantic obfuscation, and colonial standardization.

Chapter one addresses the theoretical and methodological foundations of the project by unpacking ASTS theories and fieldwork methodologies. Chapter two focuses on offshore geothermal infrastructures in the Norwegian Sea, a deep-sea exhibition on permanent exhibit at the University Museum of Bergen, and video artworks by Ase Brunborg Lie and Sissel Mutale Bergh. Chapter three turns to tidal stream technologies in the East River, a nineteenth century tide prediction machine displayed at the Maritime Museum of Stavanger, and a performance artwork by Sarah Cameron Sunde. Chapter four pivots to a wave energy converter tested in Orkney, seashells in the Kelvingrove Museum, a video artwork by Alberta Whittle, and a sculpture by Hannah Imlach. Chapter five centers on an ocean thermal energy conversion facility in Okinawa, the algae herbarium of the National Museum of Nature and Science, and a video artwork by Chikako Yamashiro.