What is Deep Sea Mining? Episode 1: Tools for Ocean Literacy is a cartographical survey of technologies that have contributed to ocean literacy and seabed mapping. Structured around a single shot along a vertical axis, the episode inquires about deep sea mining and the types of geologic formations where it is set to occur, particularly hydrothermal vents. Understanding the process of deep sea mining demands not only a temporal investigation – its main dates, legal and corporate landmarks, and scientific breakthroughs – but also a spatial axis connecting the seafloor to outer space cartographic technologies. After all, we know less about the ocean depths than about the universe beyond this blue planet.

What is Deep Sea Mining? is a five episode web series dedicated to the topic of deep sea mining, a new frontier of resource extraction at the bottom of the ocean, set to begin in the next few years. Deep sea mining will occur mainly in areas rich in polymetallic nodules, in seamounts, and in hydrothermal vents. Mining companies are already leasing areas in national and international waters in order to extract minerals and metals such as manganese, cobalt, gold, copper, iron, and other rare earth elements from the seabed. Main sites targeted for future exploration are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Clarion Clipperton Zone (Pacific Ocean) in international waters, as well as the islands of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Japan, and the Portuguese Azores archipelago. Yet, potential impacts on deep sea ecosystems are yet to be assessed by the scientific community, and local communities are not being consulted.

The prospects of this new, experimental form of mining are re-actualizing a colonial, frontier mentality and redefining extractivist economies for the twenty-first century. This web series addresses different issues related to this process, from ocean governance by international bodies to knowledge of the deep, following the lines proposed by the United Nations for a shift towards a "blue economy," but also efforts to defend sustained ocean literacy about the deep ocean, when its species and resources remain largely unmapped and unstudied.

What is Deep Sea Mining? is developed in collaboration with Margarida Mendes, curator and activist from Lisbon, Portugal, and founding member of Oceano Livre environmental movement against deep sea mining. It was commissioned and funded by TBA21 - Academy and premiered at the 2018 New Museum Triennial: Songs for Sabotage.

For more information and links to NGOs, advocacy, and activist groups involved in deep sea mining please follow the extras below.

Acknowledgements: Ann Dom, Armin Linke, Birgit Schneider, Duncan Currie, Katherine Sammler, Lisa Rave, Lucielle Paru, Matt Gianni, Natalie Lowrey, Payal Sampat, Phil Weaver, Stefan Helmreich, and everyone who helped this web series. Special thanks to: Markus Reymann, Stefanie Hessler, and Filipa Ramos.

"What is Deep Sea Mining?" is a web series commissioned and funded by TBA21 - Academy.