ARCHITECTURAL RESPONSE

Working in dialogue with the wave-like terminal building designed by internationally awarded, groundbreaking architecture firm Arquitectonica. MARIS  engages the architecture as an experimental media platform.

Fluid architecture as communicative infrastructure, amplifying both the visible and the invisible aspects of oceanic life, reorienting the greater Miami community towards its deep relationship to the Oceanic expanse.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

This state-of -the-art responsive environment, developed by The Experiential Company (TEC), produces 5 billion pixels per second in translating real-time regional NOAA data sets into virtual environmental conditions. At the heart of this complex system are advanced software tools from Derivative TouchDesigner and SideFX Houdini, alongside TEC’s proprietary technology.

“A people populated project, Maris is created by some of the most talented and dedicated animators and software engineers in the world. Their immense efforts bring this symbiotic, living virtual world into reality.

This supports an ongoing exchange of interdependent experimentation and innovation at the center of this oceanic cultural infrastructure.” – Roney reflects.

Spanning the terminal’s architecture, Quince Imaging’s expansive array of 18 high-resolution projectors envelop the monumental scale smart glass façade activated every evening at twilight. The resulting fusion of artistry and real-time data invites viewers to witness the hidden pulse of the ocean, creating an immersive experience that evolves continuously throughout the evening.

OCEANIC IMAGINARIES

Informed by current social and environmental discourses, this project embraces the concept of Oceanic Imaginaries ¹, a philosophy that:

1. Considers the oceans as “sensors” that “feel, react, and create,” and
2. Distinctly identifies “critical zones” that challenge us to collectively re-imagine how we think and act.

MARIS ’ constantly evolving fluid expanse—composed of layered temporal depths—expresses Complexity Theory through cause-and-effect relationships, which convey both positive and negative feedback loops. As a ‘living’ environment or ecosystem, it comprises an array of sub-systems with interconnected interactions.

Simultaneous and bifurcating volumes of interconnected processes assume the shape of a perpetually mobile, fourth-dimensional space, where consequences influence outcomes and guide evolutionary formations. In this perpetual flux, a virtual world with a fluid ecosystem leverages a suite of generative elements to challenge predictive AI models, embrace uncertainty—beyond predetermined authorship—and thrive in an asynchronous space-time body.

Regional oceanic datasets shape and drive a dynamically shifting animated terrain, influencing color, force, pacing, and lifespans, thus reinforcing a symbiotic environment.

What stories does this living data contain?

How do we orient ourselves toward a fluid future?

ARTIST STATEMENT

The Artist’s Personal Connection

“In the Outer Banks of North Carolina, my mariner grandfather would take me to ‘read the ocean’ in the summer mornings, creating a base of knowledge in a symbiotic relationship with the sea. What would be ‘catching’, how the currents and undertows were impacting the surf, and when the storms and sea levels were serious enough to move inland. This fundamental interrelationship remains over multigenerational histories and propels my artistic approach in creating MARIS .

That embodied relationship never leaves me. Instinctively I am aware of the Miami tides every time I am here. I can feel it.”

The Narrative Experience: Our terrestrial edges in the Hydrosphere

From twilight forward, as each evening unfolds, Maris progresses from the shoreline farther out to sea and deeper into the depths of night.

There is a rhythm to the progressions:

from the tides and currents of the ocean surface,

towards the mangrove forests ‘walking’ through the

shallows of the seagrasses producing oxygen,

always checking the tides,

onward moving into the coral nurseries, and

embarking towards the ‘sightings’ of the open sea, oceanic populations and

the human pollutants they navigate.

Always the return to the tides. As they are always changing.

Our metronome. The frequency of celestial harmonics. The heartbeat of the Hydrosphere.

NOAA CONTRIBUTION

MARIS  focuses on an oceanic terrain within the NOAA’s scientific framework, spanning from the celestial to the atmosphere to the ocean floor (hydrosphere: Earth, Ocean, Air),  and is closely tied to critical research initiatives at the Virginia Key NOAA station. Regional data sourced from local NOAA scientific research stations, JPL and NASA shape and drive the dynamically shifting virtual ecosystem, changing along with the conditions of the surrounding oceanic biosphere.

MARIS: Toward a Regional and Local Reorientation

Within the public realm, Roney posits that a planetary theoretical lens must be reoriented to re-engage regional and local communities—particularly in a coastally interwoven metropolis like Miami by harnessing locationally relevant living data atmospheres over a durational coexistence.

PLANETARY COMPUTATION

MARIS  also corresponds to the discourse surrounding Antikythera’s work on the philosophy of planetary computation, emphasizing computational technologies and the evolution of planetary intelligence.² Directed by Benjamin Bratton and based at the Berggruen Institute, Antikythera is a technology think tank reorienting the notion of planetary computation.

This project considers with the core research themes of the program – “from climate science to synthetic biology: planetary computation, synthetic intelligence, recursive simulations, hemispherical stacks, and planetary sapience. As computation evolves into planetary infrastructure—spanning scientific, cultural, and geopolitical domains – its most decisive impact may lie not only in its function as a tool, but also in its role as an epistemological technology. It reveals to sapient intelligence how the world works, thereby reshaping how intelligence remakes its worlds, including the ongoing artificialization of intelligence, life, sensation, and ecosystems.”

NEXT PHASE EXPANSION | WORLDING

We’re just getting started. As a monumental, real-time public artwork and responsive cultural infrastructure, MARIS  was conceived as a living system—an open platform capable of evolving in tandem with our changing ecological and technological realities.

Upon completing the Artwork’s uniquely ambitious technical software development integrations, the next phase of the expansion is the artist’s continued collaboration with scientists, technologists, and regional environmental stakeholders in representing the growth of complexity in ecological systems and interdependencies.

This will further enrich MARIS’S living visual palette with new,  generative oceanic animation modules while strengthening its role as a participatory research and storytelling platform and continually evolving its foundational habitats.

Through this ongoing expansion, MARIS will continue to grow as a durational artwork, a landmark cultural beacon for Miami, and a model for public art in an era of planetary transformation.