Exhibited in Transformative Currents, Oceanside Museum of Art (2024–25)Part of Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art & Science Collide initiativeCurated by Cassandra Coblentz

Marcos Lutyens’s Platform Theta is a multi-sensory installation exploring ecological imagination, fossil fuel entanglement, and altered states of consciousness. Presented at Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA) as part of the Getty’s ambitious Pacific Standard Time series (Art & Science Collide), the project centers on the imminent decommissioning of offshore oil rigs near Santa Barbara, especially the iconic Platform Holly.
Blending ecological research, architectural speculation, and psychological inquiry, Platform Theta responds to the fraught future of these post-petroleum structures—monuments to an extractive past that now teeter between destruction and transformation. The installation draws on three years of intensive dialogue with marine biologists Dr. Milton Love and Dr. Ann Bull, Chumash Tribe representatives, state policymakers, and even Chevron Oil. Lutyens investigates the moral and ecological stakes of removing these rigs versus converting them into marine reefs or reimagining them as cultural and scientific platforms.
The exhibition features an immersive stairwell installation of painted sailcloth that evokes the towering verticality of a rig's structure while mimicking the immersive currents of the Pacific. Audio components include a hypnotic induction with the collaboration of Brynn Horrocks and Aaron Drake, guiding viewers into a theta brainwave state—a deep, meditative frequency associated with imagination and reprogramming. The title Platform Theta alludes to this brain state, aligning the physical descent into the artwork with a cognitive shift toward future-oriented consciousness.
Lutyens’s drawings were also extensively featured in the exhibition catalogue, Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean, published by Oceanside Museum of Art and designed to accompany the Getty’s PST initiative. These works visually map out alternative scenarios for the oil rigs’ futures—ranging from submerged reef structures to solar-powered cultural outposts—amplifying the exhibition’s speculative scope.
Together, the installation and publication form a visionary inquiry into how we might metabolize the past and radically reimagine our relationship to energy, infrastructure, and the living systems that surround us.