NO_POLE is an ongoing research and design project that examines the cognitive, legal, political, and ecological role of remote sensing instruments in the Arctic Ocean. In the context of an escalating climate crisis and rising geopolitical tensions, remote sensors are tasked with transmitting digital fragments of the landscape back to solid ground. From digital models of microscopic rock formations to planetary scale models of the Earth’s magnetic field, the project examines the means by which these worlds are made: unit by unit, constructed from data, pixels, computational models, machine vision; often distorted by Western logics and capitalist enterprises. The project sets out to expand the region’s often problematic material record by speculating on machine senses as entry-points into otherworldly alter-egos of the planet, unfamiliar visual and material languages, and untapped ecological imaginations.

Supported by a Sawyer Seminar Fellowship at The New School as part of the “Imaginative Mobilities” project, hosted by the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility (2018-19); a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2019); a residency at A/D/O in Brooklyn (2019-20) as part of the “At the Border” research program curated by Jan Boelen and Charlotte Dumoncel d’Argence; and a research grant from Goldsmiths, University of London (2023).