1870 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. Undersea as non-existent. Imagination disguised as science. Terror vs paradise. Imaginary submarines. Library of 12000 books. Concealed private lives. Neither understand the environment of the other. Relationships of frustration. Inside and outside are relative terms. | 1954-64 Population of the undersea. Architecture reflects the state. A city block reduced to a submarine. First truly artificial environment. Windowless isolation. Long-hidden secrets of survival. Jacques Cousteau. Red wine. Cigarettes. Two-times oxygen. House not habitat. Mystical. Voyeuristic. Melancholy voiceovers. Free from vices of the land. Both fictional and documentary. The undersea has always been imagined. |
2015 H2Ome Building as a vague memory. Underwater homes. Ten million dollars. Habitable bubble. Exploration as preservation. Wilderness as conservation. Marketing glow fish. The sea begins to inhabit the land. Global warming. Flooding. The undersea is within our homes. Whale calls. “Yes, I love her. The sea is everything”. | - Ritual process of baptism. Return to primordial environment. The least we need to survive. The politics of need. The fascination of the unknown. The fascination of the artificial. Temporally undefined environments. Large-scale geoengineering. Disappearance of externality. Post-humans. Bio-genetic engineering. Liquid breathing. |