Sirens and Robots

In search of siren songs in times of climate narratives.

I.L.Y.A. [Inter-Lake Yachting Association] regatta. Put-in-Bay, Ohio, 1906

I.L.Y.A. [Inter-Lake Yachting Association] regatta. Put-in-Bay, Ohio, 1906 | Library of Congress | Public domain

Are climate models the new oracles of the Mediterranean? Where can we find the sirens that sing the fate of this sea faced with the effects of climate change? The oceanographer Joan Llort and the vocal duo Tarta Relena cross scientific research with mythology in the sound installation “Sirens and Robots.”

Come hither, as thou farest, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans;  stay thy ship that thou mayest listen to the voice of us two.
For never yet has any man rowed past this isle in his black ship until he has heard the sweet voice from our lips.
Nay, he has joy of it, and goes his way a wiser man. For we know all the toils that in wide Troy the Argives and Trojans endured through the will of the gods, and we know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.”
The Odyssey, Homer (Translation by A.T. Murray)

To those who hear it, the siren song promises to bring knowledge of all they wish to know. The myth warns that the sirens should be feared as enigmatic and inhuman, seductive and deadly creatures. Many have died from hearing their song; and the few survivors, like Ulysses, are unable to tell us exactly what they heard. All we know is that the sirens know everything that will happen, that they offer the possibility of glimpsing one’s own destiny. The rocky island on which they sing is an oracle in the midst of the sea, and their song, a prophecy.

Scientific mythology

The Mediterranean threatens, sinks, drowns, or acts as an unsurmountable obstacle. When, on the Island of Calypso, Ulysses looks at the sea, he does not contemplate it for its beauty, he does not admire its smooth surface, sparkling in the sun, he simply stares at the horizon and sees in his mind’s eye that which he cannot see.
Raül Garrigasait

In recent years, rising temperatures have ceased to be a future threat: we experience them on a daily basis as part of extreme weather events. Climate change is no longer just an abstract political and academic debate but a bodily sensation, a local impact, a social and environmental problem. Regular and inexorable on a climatic scale, the change seems chaotic and uncertain on the short scale of human perception.

Uncertainty is terribly uncomfortable for humans – it makes foresight impossible and exposes us to risk. That is why we have created tools that try to reduce the unpredictability of our environment and make sense of the unknown, from the family to agriculture and politics, science and myths. Sea monsters, including sirens, are a good example of how myths explicitly portray uncertainty – they represent the dangers of those waters from which no one has ever managed to return to tell the tale of what they found there.

Like myths, the climate models employed by science to imagine what the world will be like at the end of this century point to an unfamiliar future and warn us of the dangers we face if we fail to change course. As if we were approaching the island of the sirens without our earplugs in.

But how much truth is there in these predictions? How can we judge the usefulness of a myth? This is where the mythological creatures come in, those half-human, half-divine beings capable of going beyond the realms of us mortals and coming back to tell us about it. In terms of contemporary heroes, the most highly prized by the oceanographic community are the Argo robots, robust instruments that have revolutionised modern oceanography. These floats drift at the mercy of the ocean currents at a depth of 1,000 metres, surfacing every ten days to measure ocean temperature, salinity and other variables before sending them by satellite. Like Ulysses did, the Argos wander the seas telling us their fragmented and partial version of what they “see and hear.” There are currently 4,000 Argo floats drifting across the world ocean which, like Ulysses, tell us how much truth there is in the models and myths that underpin our imagined future.

The oracle of the Mediterranean

The laws of the earth run rampant,
they are spoken from the calm of the sea.
We know your soul and your future,
hear us and you shall know more than anyone.
The secrets of the sea are forgotten at the shore.
Tarta Relena

Dades obtingues amb observacions i models de la temperatura mitjana del Mediterrani des de l’any 1850 fins al 2100.

Data obtained from observations and average temperature models for the Mediterranean from 1850 to 2100. Image taken from the publication by Rosselló et al., 2023.

This graph shows the past evolution of the Mediterranean’s average temperature and proposes two future scenarios calculated based on different socio-economic models: one in which CO₂ emissions are drastically reduced, and another in which everything continues as before. Like mythology, this computational simulation can serve to explain the world around us and help us face the uncertainty of our destiny.

In the midst of a treacherous calm, the siren songs convey the reassuring words that everyone would like to hear – they speak of a world free from suffering and play music to please their visitors, while in reality, they are confronting him with his own reflection and the consequences of his decisions.

Without having to tie ourselves to a mast like Ulysses, without having to set sail or surround ourselves with sea, the Argo have captured the song of the sirens for us. The data – prophetic – confront us with our destiny. What can we do in light of the evidence? Is the prophecy a sentence, or an opportunity?

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