Aurora Hoel is Professor of Media Studies and Visual Culture in the Department of Art and Media Studies at NTNU. Hoel’s research focuses on the role of technology in knowledge and being, including photography, scientific instrumentation, medical imaging, and machine vision. She has published widely in the overlapping fields of image theory, media philosophy and science studies. In addition to being project leader (PI), Hoel is in charge of WP1: Deep-Sea Sensing.

Ilona Hongisto is Professor in Film Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Hongisto works across Film and Media Studies, specializing in documentary cinema and its threshold with speculation, imagination and fabulation. She has published widely in the fields of audiovisual aesthetics, media culture and film-philosophy. Hongisto is in charge of WP5: Deep-Sea Fabulation.

Benjamin Morris King is a PhD student at the Department of Art and Media Studies at NTNU. With a background as an archaeologist, King’s research centers on the intersection between perception and practice in deep-water archaeology by combining theoretical insights and technical knowledge. Focusing and working directly with advanced marine technologies like robotics, payload sensors, and data processing, King explores how we relate and interact through technological mediation with underwater cultural heritage sites in the deep sea.

Rasmus Rodineliussen is a social anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas at the University of Oslo. In his previous research, he focused on rendering the underwater world visible for humans above water, focusing on the relationship between humans, waste, water, and marine life. In his current project, part of WP4, Rodineliussen explores the negotiation between different actors involved in, depending on, or working against developments of deep-sea mining in Norway and beyond.

Jens Røyrvik is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology, specializing in the anthropology of technology and the anthropology of sustainability – and a Senior Researcher at NTNU Social Research. He started working as an operator at N-USOC, the Norwegian control room that performed plant experiments at the International Space Station (ISS), in 2016, and then began to simultaneously incorporate experience from control rooms and semi-autonomous systems also in research and teaching. Røyrvik is in charge of WP3: Deep-Sea Control.

Rob Smith is a visual artist and independent researcher based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. His practice applies digital tools and material processes to explore new approaches to situated arts practices, and investigates the complex entanglements of human interactions with their environment. Since 2002 Smith has exhibited works nationally and internationally, developed a number of artist-led initiatives and undertaken a range of residencies, commissions and projects in academic contexts.

Elly Vadseth is an artist and PHD fellow in artistic research in the Department of Art and Media Studies at NTNU. In embodied dialogue with discourses in environmental humanities and eco-feminism, her practice and research circulate around sense-making and interspecies wayfinding in shifting land and water ecologies. Interested in worldbuilding through movement, she works with performance, multi-channel video installations, virtual installations, and projects in public space.

Pasi Väliaho is Professor in History of Art and Visual Studies at the University of Oslo. Väliaho has explored the history of screen media from the early modern period until the present in three monographs and numerous essays. In Väliaho’s work, the development of media technologies – from magic lanterns to virtual reality, or camera obscuras to drones – is situated within larger histories of knowledge, capital, and colonialism. In addition to being project leader (co-PI), Väliaho is in charge of WP4: Deep-Sea Prospecting.

Øyvind Ødegård is a Senior Researcher in Marine Robotics and Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Cultural History at NTNU University Museum and is affiliated with the Centre of Excellence Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems (NTNU AMOS). With a background in marine archaeology and marine cybernetics, he has focused much of his work on developing methods for using advanced underwater technology to study cultural heritage. Ødegård leads scientific campaigns with the Applied Underwater Robotics Laboratory (AUR-Lab), as well as more theoretical work on how to integrate machine intelligence and autonomy into archaeological practices. Ødegård is in charge of WP2: Deep-Sea Exploration.