NEMESYS

In the early years of the Cold War’s third phase, NATO undertook several experimental maritime surveillance programmes designed to expand intelligence-gathering capabilities across the North Atlantic and Arctic maritime corridors. One of the least-documented of these was the ‘NEMESYS Project’ (Naval Electromagnetic Environmental Monitoring and Early Signal Yield System). Operating from 1973 to 1985, NEMESYS was intended as an autonomous, long-duration oceanic observation network.

Its unusual buoy forms, some resembling strange hybrids of navigational beacons form the basis of this project, which draws on a rare surviving visual archive: Found Super8 footage, field notes and a series of instant Polaroid photographs taken by Dr Henrik Varga; a Hungarian-born oceanographic engineer contracted to the program in its later years.