As ungraspable as it might seem to connect the incredibly spacious liquid volume of the oceans with a supposedly flat, static concept of the platform – a both programmatically and spatially defined relationship might be possible. Even if by its very nature, the platform itself might not allow for experiencing the space of the ocean, it might nevertheless allow for establishing a close enough relation to observing it, while likewise offering an entry point to actual access to ocean space. As much as literal physical ocean platforms – such as exploitive drilling platforms, or knowledge directed research platforms – are positioned in the seas in a territorial and structural sense and above the sea in a spatial perceptive sense, digital platforms seemingly are able to conceptually follow the same logic.

Within an abound complex knitted web of various parties, platforms and individuals, economies of care for the oceans give rise to a highly fluid formation of economic, social, cultural, political space of activities, that do not appear platform-like at all. However, as much as the drilling platform´s purpose is to exploit the depths of seas beneath, in a somewhat reverse manner, digital platforms have the capacity to frame windows at the surface that allow glimpses into the depth of their own underlying operational structure.

One of these environmental platform initiated by a young New York based designer draws together professionals from ocean sciences, chemists, sports companies, adventurers, film makers, artist and activist to make changes in favour of the oceans by addressing the problem of plastic pollution. Cross-linkages between the production of physical commodities, various forms of orchestrated activities, and digital platforms give rise to multi-scaled globe-spanning networks by various means of capital. Following just one of the many existing strands –exemplified by the product of a running shoe – elucidates the incredible breadth: special product-editions, seemingly made from ocean plastic, and produced in collaboration with one of the global leading sports brands find their way into online spaces of end-user directed presentations through YouTube videos unboxing, testing, evaluating and advertising these products, all of which reflect individual voices speaking to a selected group of listeners. On the other end, globally organised mass activities such as a Run for the Oceans pull together sports enthusiasts in cities all over the world. Organised with and facilitated through a running app, counting Kilometres is used to fundraise educational and ocean clean-up activities. Whereas this mass-event manifests clearly temporary but largely visible in physical space, the data provided by individuals, invisible to most of us, add up as permanent capital in the service of a profitable economy of care. Even if – or maybe explicitly because – the oceans themselves do not provide a habitat for human life, the awareness of protecting its functioning for balancing a global biochemical life-supporting condition is well served by the information and orchestration infrastructure and the respective flourishing culture of communication these platforms offer –and in a way, we might assume that they allow us access to ocean space through the experience of collective care.