Deep Sea Mining Claw Machine, 2025
Catherine Sarah Young
Dimensions variable custom squishies made of polyurethane foam and pigment; claw machine; custom audio track (2 minutes 16 seconds)
Deep Sea Mining Claw Machine is an interactive artwork that turns the familiar arcade claw game into a reflection on one of today’s most debated industries — deep sea mining.
Instead of plush toys, this machine is filled with soft, squishy objects shaped like polymetallic nodules — real mineral deposits found on the ocean floor that contain metals used in batteries, electric vehicles, and clean energy systems. These playful stand-ins invite visitors to think about how “green” technologies can still depend on extractive practices that harm the environment.
The claw machine itself has an industrial past. Early versions, created in the 1890s, were inspired by excavation equipment from massive projects like the Panama Canal — icons of ambition and control over nature. That history echoes in today’s global struggles over ocean resources and questions of who has the right to mine them.
Claw machines are also games of chance, sitting somewhere between skill and luck. This gray area mirrors the uncertain ethics of deep sea mining — a field caught between economic opportunity, environmental risk, and global inequality.
Through touch, play, and chance, the Deep Sea Mining Claw Machine invites visitors to consider: who really wins when we extract from the planet’s depths?
Artist: Catherine Sarah Young
Claw machine sponsor: Lucky Dip
Additional support: UNSW Design Futures Lab
On Site
Audio
Sounds of the Deep Sea Mining Claw Machine.
About the Artist
Catherine Sarah Young, PhD is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer, and scholar. She cultivates an artscience practice by using scientific experimentation and molecular transformations in her art-making, often relating these to planetary and environmental issues. Catherine has an international profile, with numerous fellowships, exhibitions, and speaking engagements. She was one of ArtReview Asia’s Future Greats in 2018, a Thirteen Artist Awards recipient in the Philippines in 2021, was listed as one of the 10 Women Leading the Fight against Climate Change by Earth.org in 2024, and is an Obama Leader for Asia-Pacific. Her PhD dissertation is entitled, ‘The Ghost of Rain: Investigating Petrichor as Companion Molecules in the Critical Zones through the Arts’. She is currently an academic in UNSW Sydney School of Art and Design where she mentors Master of Design students on their capstone projects framed around the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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