’ at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS) 2025, which took place in Funchal, Madeira. This year, the conference theme, “Designing for a Sustainable Ocean,” aimed to reconsider the role of DIS in shaping a more sustainable world. Rather than merely accepting research related to oceans and bodies of water, it encouraged a critical exploration of how these elements can inform and inspire design practices that move beyond human-centered perspectives.
The installation Sunk Costs explored the shipwreck of the Felicity Ace through sound, sculpture, and speculative storytelling on global logistics and ecological fallout.
In February 2022, the Felicity Ace — a 200-meter-long cargo ship registered in Panama and operated by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines — caught fire and drifted for days before sinking off thecoast of the Azores. On board were nearly 4,000 luxury vehicles: Porsches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Audis — many of them electric. The ship had departed from Germany and was headed for the port of Davisville, Rhode Island. But its true destination lay deeper.
The cargo, insured for over $400 million, consisted of made-to-order status symbols, planetary resource extractions disguised as mobility, and speculative EV investments made during the peak of the crypto and SPAC-fueled finance boom. Many of the cars were reportedly bound for high-net-worth individuals in California, whose consumer profiles were shaped by volatility, entitlement, and energy transitions, both real and imagined.
When the ship finally slipped beneath the surface, it left behind no human casualties — only a slow and silent descent into the abyssal plain. Now resting 3,000 meters below, the wreck leaks lithium, cobalt, plastics, heavy metals, and synthetic upholstery into one of the most biodiverse marine regions of the Atlantic.
Sunk Costs transforms this event into a site of storytelling, mourning, and inquiry. It is part planetary logistics tragedy, part capitalist shipwreck, part mineral elegy. The installation draws on audio documentary, speculative cartography, recovered objects, and bureaucratic ephemera. It examines the infrastructure of desire and the afterlives of consumption.
The Felicity Ace did not just sink luxury vehicles — it submerged a system. Hidden behind the slick logistics of global trade are precarious workers, fossil-fueled futures, and extractive economies of scale. From the underpaid crew members who fought the fire to the ecosystems now metabolising its debris, this wreck is also a slow violence unfolding at an oceanic tempo.
This is not just a maritime incident. It is a parable of ecological ruination and logistical overreach, a tableau of carbon capitalism burning brightly before it drowns. But it is also a space to listen—to the sea, to submerged labour, to the strange kinships that grow in wreckage.
Fantini van Ditmar, D., Allen, J., Lutz, M., Woebken, C., & Carver, L. (2025). Sunk Cost: The Saga of the Felicity Ace. In Companion Publication of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ‘25 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 184–188. DOI: 10.1145/3715668.3736391
Sunk Costs: The Saga of the Felicity Ace was developed in collaboration with
DIS2025 program: https://programs.sigchi.org/dis/2025/program/content/200727
‘How can art and design cultivate critical expressions rooted in ethics of care and relationality to influence ecological, social, and economic structures?’
Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD, focuses on ecological design and reflective practices as Professor Regenerative Art and Design. With a background in biology and design research, she explores paradigm shifts and material ethics, advancing regenerative and more-than-human perspectives
The Regenerative Art and Design (RAD) research group seeks to contribute to a new generation of regenerative designers and artists who address the pressing need for transitions that support planetary health. By taking whole systems responsibility through collaborative practices, the group aims to create transformative pathways for reimagining design futures grounded in care and ecological integrity.
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