Turbid Tides

Turbid Tides is one of the outcomes of the WaterLANDS residency (2023–2026), an EU Horizon-funded project in which six artists each reflect on one of six ecological restoration sites across Europe. Marjolijn Dijkman’s research project focuses on the Ems-Dollard estuary, the largest remaining open connection to the Wadden Sea, on the Dutch-German border, which forms both the site and the subject of the research. This will lead to presentations from 2026 to 2029.

Turbid Tides explores the parallels between rising siltation in the estuary and the expanding influence of computational thinking, with silt and data as its twin protagonists. The research traces a series of paradigm shifts across this particular landscape over time, ranging from the animistic worldviews of pre-Christian mound dwellers living in a tidal landscape, to the Cartesian dualism that shaped reclamation projects, to Freud’s psychoanalytic reading of Dutch land reclamation, and on to current transformations in Western thought about sentience, intelligence, and agency. The project will result in a series of artworks, an essay film, and a publication exploring shifts in how we understand our place in a more-than-human world.

The Ems-Dollard estuary is depleted of life due to siltation driven by a web of interacting factors: dredging, land reclamation, soil subsidence from gas extraction and peat oxidation, sea-level rise, and water management infrastructure such as the Afsluitdijk. Engineers are now experimenting with removing sediment from the estuary into a newly created intertidal area and onto subsided reclaimed land. Ecological restoration here is not only a technical intervention but also a philosophical one, an invitation to reconsider the dominant European worldview that divided nature from culture to enable economic exploitation, and to imagine more reciprocal ways of inhabiting shared landscapes.

As Australian philosopher Roman Krznaric argues in The Good Ancestor, the rich history of dike construction and maintenance in the Netherlands exemplifies long-term thinking and intergenerational care, both essential to any genuine restoration of the coastal zone and its inhabitants. Coastal restoration projects require not only technical solutions but a fundamental shift in how we relate to our environment, one that is gradually emerging around the Ems-Dollard, despite the ongoing influence of economic and water safety priorities.

References: left: Calculation method of surfaces of wetlands and swamps, useful for land reclamation, Frans van Schooten jr., Mathematische Oefeningen, 1660. He translated La Géométrie (1637) of Descartes in Latin and made the work comprehensible to the broader mathematical community; middle: Analog computing in the Hydraulics lab in the Noordoostpolder on reclaimed land in the former Zuyderzee (Waterbouwkundig Laboratorium), active from 1954-1996; Right: Illustration of a LiveDike and the connection of sensors to the cloud, 2020

Dutch water management has a longstanding computational tradition. In the 17th century, Descartes introduced the Cartesian grid, establishing geometric order over reclaimed land. This approach persisted through Hendrick Lorentz’s numerical tidal predictions for the Afsluitdijk, the hydrological models developed by Rijkswaterstaat, and the adoption of early computers at Amsterdam’s Center for Mathematics in the 1950s. The tradition continues to advance with the integration of machine learning, remote sensing, and LiveDikes around the estuary, resulting in what may be described as a cyber-polder landscape. This fusion of the computational and the more-than-human is embodied by the Google data center (europe-west4), whose cooling water, maintained at a steady 23°C, flows into the tidal ecosystem, subtly warming and altering its balance.

Alongside the estuary, an ambitious wetland restoration experiment is underway: the Twin Dyke, an inland tidal basin where turbid waters flow through a controlled breach and gradually settle into a regenerating salt marsh. This restoration site is physically connected to the Google data center via a pipeline that carries the facility’s cooling water, which is heated by data flows arriving through marine internet cables, into the estuary. That water now enters adjacent to the dyke’s opening, where it may seep back into the tidal salt marsh, creating an unexpected feedback loop between digital expansion and ecological renewal. Ebb Flow, Query Return.

Digital Northsea, Data Delta,
Tidal Computations, Subsea Clouds,
Bit streams, Turbidity Currents,
Sediment Connectivity, Submarine Networks,
Smart Dikes, Digital Breaches,
Silted Slop and Data Swamps

Documentation of the first walk De Waker (The Watcher), October 2024, photo: Wim Dijkman

Waker Slaper Dromer (Watcher, Sleeper, Dreamer)
‘Waker, Slaper, Dromer’ is a series of three walks named after the poetic names and functions of dike systems in the Netherlands. Here, the ‘watcher’ first protects against the outside water, and the inland ‘sleeper’ catches any breach. Behind this sleeper sometimes lies another ‘dreamer.’

These events connect artistic research, dike construction, ecology, philosophy, and regional history, offering an in-depth look at the landscape through contributions from various experts, each with their unique and local knowledge. These walks will be organized from 2024 to 2026 as part of Dijkman’s WaterLANDS artist residency.

See for more information: www.wakerslaperdromer.nl (Dutch only)