Mobilizations for the Ocean

A Technical-Cultural Reflection on the Operativity of Images of the Portuguese Navy

Abstract

This text is built on a cultural-technical approach to address how the sea, through technology, is reentering History, namely due to the military, scientific and extractive race regarding the seabed. With this in mind, I will analyse the operativity of the images of the Portuguese Navy: its hydrographic surveys, its new technologies, and the way in which all these efforts are connected to the country’s national strategy of expanding its continental shelf. Despite Portugal having a regional navy, its strategic position, the desire to expand the Continental Shelf and the need for rapid modernisation are factors that transform the aforementioned navy into a particularly symptomatic case of the mobilisations that drive a new era of strategic competition. Consequently, the archaeology of the media that I will be conducting will simultaneously be a geography of media.