Marc Böhlen combines instrumentation sensing with the personal to create measurements open to experience. Using a floating device - a public robot called the Glass Bottom Float (GBF) - it assesses the water quality by moving and taking measurements (i.e. temperatue, bacterial population) along the waters and stops in places that are clean enough for swimming.
The participatory nature of the research involves interviewing people with specific sets of questions. The aim is to make resource conservation more personal by using data to include experience as a parameter in the changing nature of resources.
In another work, WaterBar, Marc proposes a new approach to managing water - an increasingly precious resource - that involves creating water cocktails by filteration through rocks from Fukushima to volcanic rocks of various hazardous nature. Caught between the gamble and accuracy, these cocktails offer "a-cool-glass-of-water-thinking" about conservation and consumption of resources.