M.A.R.I.N. – Media Art Research Interdisciplinary Network – is an initiative integrating artistic and scientific practices in researching cultural and environmental ecosystems.
Between 2009-2011 M.A.R.I.N.’s focus was to organize a series of camps, a nomadic residency and workshop program looking at marine environments, sustainable mobility, and various methods & technologies for field work.
In 2009 we realized a 3-month residency and workshop programme at the Irish Sea, working in particular around Belfast, the Cumbrian coast and Liverpool. Operations were carried out from a 12-meter catamaran sail boat and working with partners in harbour cities. We used environmental sensors and existing data sets, integrating them with artistic projects.
Participants were Andreas Siagian (HONF, IN), Nigel Helyer, Daniel Woo, Michael Lake (Audio Nomad, AU), Tapio Mäkelä (FI) with the main focus on research project Ecolocated – Littoral Lives.
In 2010 a Hacklab at the Sea took place in the Baltic Sea Finnish archipelago. Mostly working with Arduinos and Xbee networks we experimented with field work doing sensing and operating with solar power. Participants were Marije Baalman (NL), Tuomo Tammenpää (FI), Dave Griffiths (UK/FI), Jim Bollansee (BE) and Tapio Mäkelä (FI).
In March 2011 M.A.R.I.N. hosted an advanced workshop on environmental sensors and sensor networks at the Pixelache Festival on Suomenlinna island, Helsinki, hosted by Marije Baalman, Tuomo Tammenpää, Mikko Sivulainen and Tapio Mäkelä. Participants were Jukka Hautamaki (FI), Reha Discioglu (FI/TR), Karthik Acharya (FI/IN) Andy Best (FI), Krisjanis Rijnieks (LT), Benjamin Dromey (FI/IR), Roope Ritvos (FI), Till Bovermann (FI/GER), Ivan Henriques (BR), Jari Suominen (FI), Antti Karttunen (FI) & Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski (FI).
In June 2011, a one-month residency “Sensing the Baltic Sea” was organized on two different islands in Finnish archipelago ending with a workshop in Tallinn, Estonia. The work began on Kemiö Island and Högsåra with Tuomo Tammenpää, Tapio Mäkelä and Ben Dromey (IR, FI), and continued in Naantali archipelago with more artists coming along: Till Bovermann (DE, FI), Yara Gasque (BR), Igor Rocha (BR), and again finishing in Tallinn with Plektrum festival co-hosted workshop with Bruno Vianna (BR) joining in, and Nigel Helyer (AU) also contributing to the workshop.
In August 2011 another set of participants joined a residency on Cartography and Everyday at the Sea that started in Stavanger and Flørli, Norway, continued to Öland in Sweden and finished on a Baltic peninsula in Lithuania, at Art Colony Nida. Starting in Norway, hosted by Hege Tapio and i/o Lab, the camp was kicked off with Karla Brunet (BR), Niki Passath (AT), Jesse Scott (CAN), Kelly Andres (CA) and Tapio Mäkelä. When hosted by Kultivator (Malin and Mathieu Vrijman & Henrik Stigebornen), also Theun (NL), Mirae Rosner (CA) took part to the camp. Except for Theun, the rest of the crew travelled onwards to Art Colony Nida, hosted by Vytautas Michelkevicius (LT).
In November 2011, a number of artists who had participated to the programme presented at Techno Ecologies event in Riga, hosted by Rix-C.
The initial idea for the project grew out of experiences of Polar Circuit workshops in the Finnish Lapland (1997-2000), Solar Circuit residency in Australia (2002) and an idea to research the Baltic Sea using islands as field camp sites. These initiatives have been moderated by Finnish media artist Tapio Mäkelä. Marko Peljhan, with a long history in Makrolab projects joined Tapio to draft the initial M.A.R.I.N. concept. Marko also wanted to equip a boat using sustainable technologies.
While Marin association is still looking into options of building or modifying a boat as a research and residency hub, several practical experiences out of summer 2009 suggest that working in a more hybrid way makes more sense. The connected islands method of 2011 summer is based on a flexible camp + lab architecture that connects with existing facilities, mostly off-grid. It enables better concentration on the research at hand. In 2009 we discovered that sailing consumes far more energy and time from the actual research than we had anticipated. The boat would need to be much bigger to enable efficient work and living on board for more than five people.
Thus the main research strands are currently:
- Environmental sensors and sensor networks
- Cartography, mapping practices at sea and in the littoral zones
- Alternative energy production using solar, wind, hydro power
- Low power and distributed computing + DIY
- Field Camp architectures
And a side strand of:
- Designing a boat based research and residency vessel
2011 events were produced by Tapio Mäkelä and Kati Åberg, with the partner organizations, and Tuomo Tammenpää and Susanna Koskinen as co-moderators.