Blue Ontology (a photo of the sea taken twice a day between Australia and China)

Background: This project applied a mobile research methodology to investigate how perceptions of time, pace and location are corporally measured at sea. As Steinberg and Peters (2015, p.255) have observed: the ocean, unlike land, has a ‘nonlinear, non-measurable notion of time’. Furthermore, as Khalili (2018) has noted, shipping routes differ from roads in the way that their physical presence dissolves and dissipates.Therefore, when you are at sea with no landmasses visible, you lose your understanding of the speed at which you are travelling as well as your location on the map and must rely on devices such as GPS, sextant and the perfect timepieces (all of which are still installed in contemporary merchant ships).Therefore, this research asked how can a mixed-media arts practice be used to capture the corporeal experience of being at sea? Contribution: Created onboard the ANL Wahroonga container ship traveling from Australia to China Blue Ontology (a photo of the sea taken twice a day between Australia and China) was a timber box measuring 40 x 15cm which was divided into a 5 x 6 grid.Each grid had a photograph of the ocean printed on Perspex. A corresponding template on the lid detailed the coordinates of the photographs. In doing so the research revealed the impossibility of marking yourself statically on the map when the ocean, ship and your body are constantly in motion. Significance: Blue Ontology (a photo of the sea taken twice a day between Australia and China) was shortlisted for the Nillumbik Art Prize, in 2019 and exhibited at Montsalvat, Melbourne. It was exhibited at the Mission to Seafarers in Melbourne in 2018.