projects > art > oil compass


OIL COMPASS




"How to Make an Ocean" - a short overview of the concept behind the work, research and experience



Oil Compass

OIL COMPASS is an interactive installation, allowing viewers to discover global real-time (in some cases hacked) data of oil tankers traffic, oil spills and other sea pollution and their distribution with ocean's currents.

In Oil Compass the real time environmental data visualisation becomes a crucial component of this work, allowing people to interact with it and discover oil and radioactive spills together with plastic pollution, raising awareness of their distribution all over the world by ocean currents. The source of data are online databases and collected information. It visualises real time data of oil tankers marine traffic and position of oil rigs, thus advocating of data transparency.

The interfance has been based on Google Earth API with bespoke created layers/graphics. It was divided in three parts - historical, current and future. Historical data shows 30 most dangerous off-shore oil spills all over the world and its impact on surrounding areas. The current part tracks in real time traffic of oil tankers and positions of the oil rigs which came from the especially for it hacked sources. The future part is about managing disasters. The public can navigate through the installation via trackballs, which are connected to hacked ports in the Apple MacMini computer.

Although it is an independent art project, it has been used as navigational part of Protei (now www.scoutbots.com) within which it covered three areas:
1) Educational/Didactic - informing people about past and present spills and its dangers;
2) Monitoring/Forecasting - through analysing collected data it is possible to predict the next disaster and
3) Navigational for “Protei” locations - so that we can send Protei where necessary and track fleet’s movement.
Its content was created by communities all over the world - people who keep updating “Oil Compass” map with oil, plastic or other sea pollution in their regions.


THE TEAM

Sound: RICHARD BIERHUIZEN
Tech Support: MARK CARTER, SIMON DEBAKER, JAN MISKER

SUPPORT

Comissioned and produced by V2_ Institute for Unstable Media

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

21.07 - 21.08.2011
International Media Art Exhibition “TransLife”
National Art Museum of China
Beijing, China



September 2011
Witte de With Festival
V2_ Institute for Unstable Media
Rotterdam, NL



September 2011
ISEA’11
Sabanci Centre
Istanbul, Turkey


September 2012
ARS Electronica
OÖ Kulturquartier
Linz, Austria


October 2012
MetaMorph
Babel Gallery
Troindheim, Norwa


September 2012
TRANSNATURAL Festiva
NEMO Centre
Amsterdam, NL


OTHER

V2_ website page



V2_ website artist page



Protei and Oil Compass in Brazil



"Oil Compass"
Speculative map of off shore oil spills in the future

"Oil Compass"
a fragment of the map of past biggest oil spills - night view