Deeply Connected at SILBERSALZ 2026

From 28 October to 1 November 2026, we are presenting Deeply Connected, an interactive installation by media artist Max Seeger, at the SILBERSALZ Science & Media Festival in Halle (Saale). The work was created during our Co-Creation Residency together with our creative lab Tinkertank. It is part of The Ocean Runs Deep, our ocean literacy project, and is being shown to the public for the first time.

Deeply Connected

And in the ocean, it doesn’t only snow in winter. In the ocean, it snows every day. Small flakes of organic matter fall day after day into the deepest depths of our oceans, forming the foundation for extraordinary forms of life, deeper in the sea than any human has ever been.

Deeply Connected lets visitors sink with the marine snow into this depth, 0.01 meters per second, into an immersive space that responds to their presence: to bodies, to stillness, to pace, to curiosity. Yet what waits below may be less foreign than it first appears. To find the rhythm of the deep sea is to draw closer to the beings that call this unreal habitat home.

But this closeness also raises questions: How much do we need to know in order to care for the continued existence of these habitats, and how much depth are we allowed to let remain deep? Deeply Connected seeks no answer, only a moment of connection, between human and deep sea, between light and dark, between transparency and opacity. Perhaps care begins exactly where we stop wanting to know everything. And in the end, perhaps only one question remains: Do I care?

Six weeks of deep sea at Tinkertank

Since 21 September, Max Seeger has spent six weeks working at Tinkertank in Ludwigsburg. Together with the Tinkertank team, he conceived, built, tested and rethought the work. Our photos and videos from the residency show how it took shape step by step.

Deeply Connected is a prototype and an early stage of The Ocean Runs Deep. In Halle, it meets an audience for the first time. What we observe there and learn from visitors will feed into the project’s further development. Find out more about The Ocean Runs Deep, the team and the next steps on the project page (link).

For the ninth time, the SILBERSALZ Science & Media Festival brings together science, media, art and society: five days of films, exhibitions, talks, immersive experiences and live events across Halle. Under the motto “Ich, verbesserlich?” (“Me, improvable?”), this year’s edition explores health in all its dimensions, from prevention and sleep to longevity and the drive for self-optimisation.

Deeply Connected begins where our own bodies end. The deep sea may seem far away, yet it shapes the air we breathe and regulates the climate. Its health is inseparable from our own.

All information about the installation can be found in the SILBERSALZ Festival programme.