Offshore, Coastward. Contemporary art as a decoding tool of scientific sea-based research to reveal future coastal developments

Over the past two decades, ocean and territorial transformations due to climate change have increased exponentially. One of the most affected territories where the effects of these changes are significantly visible and intense is the coastal zone (Alterman and Pellach, 2020), «uniquely the place on earth where terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric processes interact» (Ray and Hayden, 1992:405), and where about 40 percent of world population live (UN, 2017). The rise in frequency and intensity of phenomena such as sea level rise, hurricanes, erosion, has increased the need to investigate and interpret seas and oceans conditions, and to understand, both under scientific and social point of view, the extent to which they play a key role in shaping the future of coastal areas. Lately, a growing number of art research started supporting scientific research in the process of investigation and monitoring of the state of terrestrial, atmospheric and marine environment, with methodologies that decode objective data and re-encode those through aesthetic perception. In 2015, the Schmidt Ocean Institute launched Artist-AtSea, a residency program on board of the R/V Falkor ship dedicated to collaborative research between artists and marine scientists on ocean changes; in 2018, the Anthropocene art project, based on the scientific research of the international Anthropocene Working Group, took form as an interactive exhibition in which art, environmental science and anthropology dialogue with the public about global changes through visual language; in 2019, the TBA21-Academy opened in Venice the Ocean Space, an interdisciplinary center for the study of ocean transformations and territorial impacts. Overcoming the disciplinary boundaries of specialist fields and contaminating the multiplicity of their different approaches, Arts-Based Research (Leavy, 2009) open up new possibilities of interpretation and communication of global and local changes. Moving from the analysis of projects and research experiences operating between art, environmental and social sciences, architecture and education, the present work outlines the potential for contemporary art to act both as a radar that anticipates territorial transformations (McLuhan, 1964), and as a medium (ibid.) capable of triggering a widespread awareness through its own language, influencing policy-making , and contributing towards the elaboration of new architectural and planning codes for the development of coastal landscape.