The research project focuses on the future of governance in the time of climate breakdown, exploring the case study of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean, and its core infrastructure platform -EDITO. Launched by the European Commission in February 2022, the Digital Twin of the Ocean – a virtual replica of all marine and coastal environments worldwide – is part of the European Union’s “Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters” and is scheduled for

completion by 2030. The research project will investigate and document the development of the Digital Twin of the Ocean to understand its complexity, mechanisms of creation, and future maintenance, arguing that currently, simulations and media technologies are no longer merely representing the world but are actively shaping it and producing events themselves. These real-time simulations embody a new aesthetics and politics of immersion, prediction and control, by shaping perceptions of desirable futures and further advancing the development of other technologies that can fulfil them.

Departing from questioning which agents and forms of knowledge are included or excluded in these models and what is being measured and what is not, the research project aims to examine and conclude on how these speculations and scenarios will affect decision-making process and worldview by a range of actors, such as individuals, communities, NGOs, companies, and states. Research will combine qualitative methods, investigative aesthetics, open source intelligence tools, and the methodology of wet environing media. Its goal is to raise awareness and advocate for imagination of different futures, beyond the one optimised, normalised, and rooted in predictable pattern recognition.