Hydromancy was filmed on location in the laboratories and workshops of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK. The centre is an institute for developing technologies that investigate the complexity of the world’s oceans, earth systems and biosphere.

The film considers the ocean as both a sentient agent and scientific object and blends documentary with artistic intervention. We visit a coral lab bathed in blue light; an engineering workshop where autonomous vehicles are fitted with sensors to measure ocean currents, temperature and chemical composition. Finally, we enter a lab bubbling with cultured algae and phytoplankton.

Hydromancy puts into focus the tools, technologies and spaces involved in ocean sensing and modelling. The camera navigates the laboratory and field as technological and biological merge. Shifting in and out of scale and perspective, water acts as a portal to breach time and space. Like currents within the ocean, data, organisms and media are stirred. Haunting the film is the Hydromancer, an utterance between voice, song, breath and atmosphere; a formless heteroglossia that queries language, representation and forms of knowing.

Co-commissioned by John Hansard Gallery and Onassis Stegi as part of Weather Engines, curated by Daphne Dragona and Jussi Parikka. The film was exhibited at John Hansard Gallery from 1–26 November 2021 and at Onassis Stegi Athens from 1 - 15 May 2022. Hydromancy was also screened as part of Medialab Matadero and Cineteca Madrid experimental film cycle Sentient Media 27-29 April 2022. You can read a review of the film by Jamie Sutcliffe in Art Monthly.