3km Deep

3km Deep' is a sonic exploration of Italy’s Devil’s Valley — a geothermal landscape long associated with Dante’s Inferno and now under renewed pressure from lithium exploration, following the European Union’s 'Critical Raw Materials Act’ (2024).

Working with scientists from the Italian National Research Council and the University of Geneva, designer Emma Zerial recorded seismic ambient noise from 3km underground and translated it into a sonic territory. The resulting soundscape and vibrating platform create an immersive experience of tremors, gaps, and subterranean forces through a continuous feedback loop between signal and discarded data.

By framing noise as a medium that defies representation, '3km Deep' explores the entanglements between sensing, extractive politics, and planetary imaginaries. The work challenges dominant visual regimes of territorial understanding and proposes listening as a political practice of relation with the unknown.