Deep Dive, 2021

interactive VR experience and installation environment

HTC Vive and controllers, EEG sensors, gaming PC

Deep Dive is an experimental video game commissioned by FACT (Liverpool, UK) as part of the Jerwood Arts/FACT Digital Fellowship. It is a psycho-geographical exploration of the deep sea in VR controlled by EEG sensors.

This immersive experience draws parallels between levels of consciousness and the natural world by linking viewers’ brainwave activity to a descent through the five depth zones of the ocean (epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathypelagic, abyssopelagic, hadalpelagic). This mechanic which relies on attention and distraction critiques the modern condition of hyperstimulation and sensationalism, challenging viewers to navigate past the surface layers and into a deeper reality.

More mentally-scattered states cause the viewer to stay still, and more mentally-still states cause them to descend, diving further into the unknown. Although the surface level offers an idealised, untroubled vision of ocean life, as viewers descend, a more complex, morally ambiguous picture unfurls before them. Lifeforms become more unfamiliar and ugly by human standards. It is here in the darkness that viewers also witness these creatures’ struggle to adapt to environmental changes brought about by human activity.

This work raises pertinent questions about our responsibility as a species and individuals for the wellbeing of others. Gaining a degree of control over one’s mental state requires enhanced self-awareness; as a consequence, this expanded consciousness reveals a fuller picture of reality. Depending on whether the player takes a short-cut route to the bottom, or stays with the trouble of mastering their state of mind, they experience a different ending.