Of
the
thesis
entitled: Submechanophilia
Abstract:
Twenty-three federal
offshore
oil
platforms
line
the
coast
of
Southern
California
for approximately
200
miles
from
Point
Conepcion,
Santa
Barbara
County
to Huntington
Beach,
Oxford
County.
Installed
from1968
to
1989,
they
are
some
of the
oldest
platforms
in
the world
and
currently
face
the
process
of
complete decommissioning
after
having
consumed
the
site’s
200-million-year-old
reserves in
just
over
a
century.
The
site
holds
a
heavy
history
with
oil;
from
one
of the
world’s
first
offshore
oil
wells
in
1896,
to
large
and catastrophic
oil spills,
to
present
day,
with
unregulated
offshore
fracking.
However,
beneath
the
surface
of
the
water,
their
metal
lattice
structure that
anchors
them
to
the
earth
is
covered
in
a
thick
layer
of
life,
as
they have
grown
into
dense
micro-habitats
that
support
an
entire
food
cycle
-
from deep
sea
invertebrates
to
fish
and
large
mammals. The
site
composes
the
first half
of
the
Southern
California
Bight,
a
zone
on
the
coastal
shelf
that
is
rich in
ecological
diversity.
Here,
complex
offshore
winds
and
eddies
twist
larvae, nutrients,
and
plankton
to
the
platforms,
initiating
the
growth
of
life.
The question
of
the preservation
of
life
on
the
platforms
has
placed
a
doubt
in
the process
of
decommissioning,
with
many
stakeholders
speculating
on
keeping
the platforms
in
place
with
a
future
use.
Inspired
by
contemporary
French
sociologist
Bruno
Latour’s
spirit
of inclusivity
and
collectivity
amongst
the
sciences,
this
thesis
proposes
the reuse
of
oil
platforms
as
centres
of
scientific
and
field
research,
inviting the
sciences
to
re-enter
the
site
as
a
collective
whose intention
is
to
study and
cohabitate
with
the
site’s
ecology.
Gathering
the
sciences
that
maintain
an interest
in
the
site,
the
design
aims
to
engage
with
site’s
assembly
of
human and
non-human
forces
and
immerse
into
the
forces
of
energy,
matter
and
life.
The examining committee is as follows:
Supervisor:
Committee Members:
Adrian Blackwell, University of Waterloo
Anne Bordeleau, University of Waterloo
Dereck Revington, University of Waterloo
External Reader:
Joyce Hwang, University at Buffalo
The
committee
has
been
approved
as
authorized
by
the
Graduate
Studies
Committee.
The
Defence
Examination
will
take
place:
Wednesday
January
11,
2017
10:30
AM
ARC
Loft
A
copy
of
the
thesis
is
available
for
perusal
in
ARC
2106A.