M O R T D I V I N G Commercial Diving | Aquaculture Contract
Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania Australia 2008-2009
A self-designed research residency project exploring farmed ocean fishing practices from the vantage of the mort diver
tending to salmon and trout in free-flowing ocean pens at various stages of life from smolt to harvest-sized fish.
Material and experience gathered will culminate towards an interactive performance experience on floating water craft and a short filmclip.
Aquaculture*
Aquaculture, is the practice of farming aquatic organisms like salmon in fresh, brackish [mixture of fresh & salt water]
or salt water. Aquaculture is considered an agricultural activity, despite the many differences between aquaculture and terrestrial [land based] agriculture.
Aquaculture was first developed more than 2,000 years ago in countries such as China and Egypt, and commonly involved stocking wild-caught seed—for example,
carp fingerlings (juvenile fish) captured from rivers—in ponds or other bodies of water for further growth. Whilst the industry has evolved to a high level
of sophistication thanks to extensive research and development, one thing remains the same: Most aquacultural crops are developed to augment natural populations
of fish and be a primary source of food destined for human consumption.
*Source: The Huon Aquaculture Group [HUON] 2009
Macquarie Harbour 2009. Images courtesy Andrew Kelly
Mort Divers
After many years studying other diving industries, both recreational and commercial, and combined this data with knowledge
of dive physiology, ADAS Aquaculture divers devise their own safe practices to service commercial fish farms.
'Mort Divers' are resposible for:
recording observed data for assessing fish health
mort removal and determining cause of mortality
net inspection and repair
checking net integrity (setting and mooring etc.)
Pell, Macquarie Harbour 2009. Images courtesy Dr. Paul Hardy-Smith
Discussion - Wild Vs Farming
What is the environmental impact of these two methods?
How does this reflect contemporary attitudes to cycles of life?
Devising the mobile bioart performance lab LifeBoat (2003-5) with Dr. Nigel Helyer,
Dr. Stuart Hodgetts, Oron Catts and Dr. Ionat Zurr we posed the following questions/statements for comment by our audience/participants as one part of a unique
psychological and ethical profiling questionaire LifeBoat QA63:
