Liquid Translations (2024) This project began as an attempt to scan the Mediterranean Sea. Using 3D scanning and digital fabrication, we wanted to see what would happen when something as fluid and unstable as water was translated into a static, printable form. But it quickly became clear that the scanner couldn’t see the sea. What it could see, and what it captured, was movement.

Still water, or even small volumes held between hands, disappeared entirely. There was nothing for the sensor to register. It was only when we turned to the sea in motion that the scanner responded. The waves, constantly shifting, produced fragmented meshes and torn geometries. In other words, what we ended up scanning wasn’t the sea itself, but the traces of its movement.

This realization became central to the work. The scanner didn’t fail, it revealed how it understands the world. The tool’s perception is shaped by what it is programmed to detect: edges, contrast, motion. It captures what fits its logic and filters out the rest. As N. Katherine Hayles (1999) argues, digital systems begin with the “abstraction of information from materiality” (p. 13). That abstraction is not neutral, it reshapes what is recorded, what is valued, and what becomes legible.

The final prints, built from layered PLA filament, don’t resemble the sea. They resemble interference, dense, wave-like structures with visible support scaffolding left in place. These aren’t replicas, but artifacts of translation. They show how the machine sees, and what it overlooks.

The installation included mirrors and video projections that emphasized this shift: from capturing a place to capturing a system of movement. Captured Currents isn’t about representation, it’s about what gets lost, distorted, or re-authored when physical phenomena are translated through digital tools.