Before We
Knew Your Name
MISSION: SCHOLL DEEP
Enter a moving mixed-reality sub simulator traveling to Scholl Deep, uncover a living community on one solitary rock, and build a collective field record that turns discovery into responsibility and action.
2nd
Crewed visit to Scholl Deep in 2022
We are meeting life for the first time in places our impacts reached before we did.
Trench length
1,000+ km
10,000+ m
Scholl Deep below sea level
Why the Kermadec Trench?
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Globally significant science
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Connected directly to our location
This region is more than a backdrop. The future of the Kermadec/Rangitāhua area remains unsettled, making scientific evidence, genuine partnership, and shared public responsibility central to what happens next.
Located northeast of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Kermadec Trench turns a globally significant deep-ocean story into one rooted in our own region. UC’s research networks and immersive-production facilities give us a credible pathway from local expertise to a working prototype.
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Education
Participants learn by becoming a research crew—observing, comparing evidence, recording uncertainty, and building a shared field record.
The experience strengthens ocean-science literacy while connecting discovery to care, conservation, and informed action.
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A call to action
Discovery and disturbance occupy the same place: rare life, sediment tracks, fishing gear, and synthetic particles all become part of the story.
Recent dives encountered animals presumed new to science - or not collected since the 1950s - and fishing floats and nets on the same seafloor.
A physical submersible. A shared LED world. A mixed-reality close encounter.
Physical Sub Prototype
Seated cabin, real surfaces, vibration, restrained robotic movement.
Virtual Production
The macro environment: water column, Kermadec geology, Scholl Deep and the rock.
Each layer has a distinct job, so the experience feels embodied without becoming technologically bloated.
Passthrough keeps the cabin visible while life, data and scale cues enter the room.
Quest 3 Mixed Reality
PA carries shared narration; headsets add spatial, role-specific detail.
PA + HMD audio
Evidence turns into a shared entry and one practical next step.
Field record
Design Rule
The LED wall establishes the world everyone shares; the headsets reveal what each researcher notices within it.
A story told through the expedition
The conservation message emerges through wonder, evidence, insight, and care.
Finding human material in the trench tells us where it has travelled. Understanding possible effects tells us why that journey matters.
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The discovery belongs to the crew.
No one researcher has enough information alone. The field portrait becomes meaningful only when the crew combines evidence.
Imaging Researcher
Camera + documentation
Frames, stills, scale reference, visual detail
Ecological Observer
Light
Movement, habitat, feeding, response to disturbance
Environmental Researcher
Sensor + limited manipulator
Depth, current, pressure, acoustic and particulate readings
Field Recorder / Interpreter
Evidence synthesis
Observation vs inference, confidence, uncertainty, final entry
The emotional reward is the collective experience: “we noticed this together.” The evidence system advances through communication — not by simply clicking on illuminated buttons.
One rock. One possible new lifeform.
WONDER
DISCOVERY
UNEASE
RESPONSIBILITY
AGENCY & ACTION
Exploration is therefore more than an act of curiosity. It is a responsibility to observe carefully, minimize disturbance, and protect what we come to know.
Before we understood this world, we had already begun to change it—and even the act of discovery leaves a trace. The question is not only what we find, but how gently we choose to find it.
The human impact should be the turning point.