Each tile of the work depicts an image of the same body of water as looking through the slats of a walkway, yet each pane looks vastly different from the next.<\/p>\n In shades of blue, gray, and black, the color of the water shifts according to the light. The ripples of the surface dance differently in response to wind. The strength of the stripe of light shining through the two slats depends on the atmosphere \u2013 the stripe in one pane is obscured entirely, the result of smokey haze from wildfires.<\/p>\n This one picture, on display as part of the exhibition \u201cFloating Points: Observing the Plastisphere with NASA,\u201d<\/a> perfectly describes what UConn marine sciences professor Heidi Dierssen describes as \u201crocket science.\u201d<\/p>\n Quite simply, looking at an ocean\u2019s surface to make observations or draw conclusions with only the naked eye or even through the most advanced satellite imagery in space, isn\u2019t as easy as one might think.<\/p>\n Take, for instance, the idea that from space, the Earth is a blue marble, she says. It is, but not for the reason one might think – from space, the Earth\u2019s oceans look midnight blue, maybe even black.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a photon goes into the ocean, it gets bent downward, and it keeps going downward until it\u2019s absorbed by the water, phytoplankton, and other things in the water,\u201d she explains. \u201cWhat you don\u2019t know is like only 1% or 2% get flipped backward, and once they get flipped, they have to go through an air interface and then through this atmosphere and guess what color the atmosphere is?\u201d<\/p>\n Sky blue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe blue marble is blue because we have this amazing atmosphere,\u201d she explains. \u201cIn fact, if our oceans were on Mars, we would call it the red marble. The truth is more than 90% of the photons coming off the ocean come from reflections. Understanding how light interacts with the ocean surface is key to trying to observe bits of floating white plastic on the ocean surface from space.\u201d<\/p>\n Dierssen, who studies remote sensing of oceanic properties, met Landi about five years ago, not long after he came off a residency in the Arctic Circle during which he sought to photographically document the presence of microplastics in remote waterbodies.<\/p>\n Affirming that, yes, even the Arctic is tainted by human plastics, Landi and Dierssen connected with the thought they might be able to help one another.<\/p>\n Landi joined Dierssen\u2019s research team to bring the group of scientists an artistic eye and special knowledge of the way light influences a subject \u2013 in this case the ocean surface. Is it possible to see floating plastics from NASA\u2019s high-powered images of ocean color, the scientists wondered, since the technology is designed to detect ocean biology?<\/p>\n There are \u201ctruly trillions of little bits of white plastic all over the oceans. In fact, they\u2019re congregated in the center of these big ocean gyres where water piles up in the center of ocean basins and we have downwelling. So, anything that floats sort of congregates there,\u201d Dierssen says, explaining that even in what\u2019s known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” there isn\u2019t a massive collection of plastic.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no island the size of Texas. If there was, my job would be super simple. Instead, it\u2019s these little bits of white; what we call them is ‘floating points of light.’ And as you look around this room, you\u2019ll get inspired by what Oskar got inspired by,\u201d she says, gesturing to Landi\u2019s photographs on display in the main room of the gallery.<\/p>\n They depict things like sun glint, one of the phenomena optical oceanographers like Dierssen must correct for, or remove from calculations, when looking at images of the ocean surface.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think of sun glint as this giant beam coming up,\u201d she says. \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s little facets of light that are reflections of the sun at very small scales. You can actually see these floating points of the sun. So that is something I have to remove and say, \u2018How much sun is reflected,\u2019 for me to see how many bits might be left that are plastics.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She says she also must consider the ocean foam from white caps, which from space looks like white plastic.<\/p>\n Look at Landi\u2019s photograph, \u201cFoamscape #1239,\u201d Dierssen says, its black water covering the picture end to end with ripples of waves and a cascade of sunlight over a patch of sea foam smeared across the center.<\/p>\n Dierssen asks whether there\u2019s glint on foam, something she wondered about for years.<\/p>\n Scientific models were unclear on the answer, and researchers hypothesized the answer was no. Photographs like Landi\u2019s offered confirmation of that assumption, she says, adding that looking at \u201cFoamscape\u201d one can see the foam doesn\u2019t have glint; it exists around the foam.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone who has a special eye like you do is able to confirm that our models are doing a pretty good job,\u201d Dierssen tells Landi. \u201cI never knew that. I just assumed, \u2018Well, foam doesn\u2019t glint.\u2019 But how would I know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Art is different from science \u2013 but here we are\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Adding an artist to her team of researchers has been one of the best things Dierssen ever did, she says. Even a video Landi produced, and is part of the exhibition, showing how a piece of plastic reacts in moving water has influenced her scientific models.<\/p>\n The relationship, she says, has prompted her to see the natural world differently, to look at water \u2013 the very things she\u2019s studied for more than 20 years \u2013 for more than what it is.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a scientist, and art is different from science – but here we are in this collaboration,\u201d she says, praising the relationship between science and art, each complementing the other.<\/p>\n Dierssen says she hopes to continue working with Landi, especially with the launch early next year of NASA\u2019s PACE – Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem<\/a> – mission, for which she serves as science team leader. She plans to be at Cape Canaveral when it launches and hopes Landi will lend his creative eye.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope that my work will encourage discovery and adventure as well as reconnection with the natural environment, a fundamental need that too often is compromised by our modern lifestyles,\u201d Landi says. \u201cNature is changing rapidly, but it\u2019s still here. It\u2019s everywhere. We just need to remind ourselves that we\u2019re part of it and be aware of the beauty it always has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n While more appreciative now of the world\u2019s beauty, Dierssen, in helping to develop \u201cFloating Points,\u201d admits she was out of her comfort zone.<\/p>\n Curated by gallery director Jeanne Ciravolo, the exhibition features Landi\u2019s photographs, two of his short movies, and at least one scientific chart, courtesy of Dierssen, that details NASA\u2019s Spaceborne Quantification of Ocean MicrO-Plastics (SQOOP) project, which was a massive study that considered atmospheric, wind, and sea surface conditions to see if microplastics were detectable with the current satellite technology.<\/p>\n The answer:<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got good news, people. No, we can\u2019t,\u201d Dierssen joked with a crowd gathered recently for the exhibition\u2019s opening and a related Gallery Talk. \u201cThey have to be 100 to a thousand times more concentrated on the sea surface from today to really be observed. And even under the best conditions \u2026 we have looked every which way and even in the \u2018Great Pacific Garbage Patch,\u2019 at this point, they\u2019re not concentrated enough.\u201d<\/p>\n That means research will carry on. More photographs will be taken. And Dierssen and Landi will continue to explore floating points in the water.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Concurrent to \u201cFloating Points: Observing the Plastisphere with NASA,\u201d<\/a> the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art has \u201cWaterbodies: Works by Marsha Borden, sTo Len, and Etty Yaniv\u201d<\/a> on display. This exhibition features contemporary art that centers on the damage humans have done to waterways and marine environments. Borden and Len received 2022 Connecticut Sea Grant Art Support Awards for their works. \u201cFloating Points\u201d and \u201cWaterbodies\u201d are open through Dec. 10. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays on the second floor of the Branford House at the UConn Avery Point campus.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The presence of microplastics in the world’s oceans are the focus of the exhibition, which runs through Dec. 10 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":207190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,2226,2460,2466,2199,2235,173],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2368],"class_list":["post-207178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-clas","category-faculty","category-marine-sciences","category-new-london-county","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-avery-point"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 05:57:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207178"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207355,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207178\/revisions\/207355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/207190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207178"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=207178"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=207178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Slit](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Slit-Grid-300x225.jpg\")
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