Sam Cossman can trace his zeal for adventure back to his childhood. Growing up in the wooded areas surrounding Atlanta, there was no shortage of opportunities to explore. Things were simple, and everything was imbued with a sense of wonder. Even his backyard had something to offer. “There was a creek behind my house that would flood when it would rain” he reminisces. “My sister and I would find some things to float on and then find ourselves in neighboring counties.”
He laughs now at his childhood explorations, which he calls “a very juvenile thing.” But, it was those first groping attempts at discovery that have made him into one of the leading exponents of the new age of exploration. Defined by the capabilities of new technology and the ambitions of Silicon Valley’s tech glitterati, this burgeoning era is rooted less in discovering distant lands or charting new continents and more in pushing the boundaries of knowledge to their furthest possible extremities.
Sam recently traveled to our project site of El Mirador with Executive Director Stefaan Poortman and Mirador Project Director Dr. Richard Hansen for a technology scouting mission. Using drones and 3D video to capture Mirador’s art, architecture, and natural environment, Sam and David Finsterwalder, Realties.io co-founder, also scanned the Jaguar Paw Temple and built a preliminary virtual reality experience on the Realities.io platform. Sam hopes to deepen future technology efforts at Mirador and broaden the scope of his work to other GHF sites. We’ll be chronicling that process as it unfolds. For now, we caught up with Sam in Global Heritage Fund’s San Francisco offices to discuss his life, his work, and his passions.*
* This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Global Heritage Fund: Tell us what it was like exploring an active volcano.
Sam Cossman: It’s a similar combination of feelings that we all have as we go through life. There are moments of exhilaration, moments of intense fear, moments of introspection and reflection on the very act of pushing yourself to your uttermost limits both emotionally and physically. There’s definitely a range of emotions, but it’s condensed into a more acute timeframe. Focusing on the “mini-moments” as opposed to the big picture and simply puutting one foot in front of the other is the best way to prevent getting lost in your own head. I think that’s really easy to happen on these types of hair-raising adventures when adrenaline’s pumping and you’re dealing with a lot of things and trying to find solutions. Staying focused is key.
GHF: So was that what prompted you to quit your job and become the adventurer, explorer, and filmmaker you are today?
SC: It actually began long before the volcano, but it manifested more meaningfully after incubating a tech company. It was sort of a Kickstarter for new adventure ideas, and one of those was the “Volcano Experience.” It was this volcanic wonderland. I thought it would be an amazing place to visit myself and to share with other people, so I put it on the marketplace. That startup didn’t make it, but fast forward a year later, and I wound up getting an opportunity to rekindle that product which had been put on the shelf for a while. So with very little notice, I threw caution to the wind, requested time away from my team to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and went there with a small group of other explorers and filmmakers. It was funded by a large network, and I kind of tagged along as an extra, if you will.
While the network decided it was too unsafe to go in, our team decided to take our GoPros and we wound up getting some unique footage. It was quite an adventure in itself, going to a place that’s had fewer people than the surface of the moon; a 1200-foot vertical drop into what looks like the center of the earth with a gigantic lake of lava the size of a football field. I captured some very unique footage, boarded my flight home, busted out my laptop and edited a little video that I posted online.
It was quite an adventure in itself, going to a place that’s had fewer people than the surface of the moon, a 1200-foot vertical drop into what looks like the center of the earth with a gigantic lake of lava the size of a football field.
GHF: What sort of reaction did you get to that?
SC: I sent the link on YouTube to two people: my mom, and a good friend of mine. The next morning I received calls from Good Morning America and Fox News, and they were saying “have you checked your YouTube account lately? It seems to have gotten a little bit of attention overnight.” So I logged in and, sure enough, it was counting up by the millions. And I’d never experienced anything like that before. True virality, at the core. And not just virality, in the kinds of things you see like “Charlie bit my finger!” that may make it onto a talk show, but virality in the sense of global headlines: this seemingly magical place existed and there were people that were either stupid enough or brave enough to go inside.
It started a media tour where for the first time I went shared my story to global audiences. I ended up going back to my day job but I realized that this is what I was meant to do: to go to places like this, to inspire a sense of curiosity and a greater audience for the greater good, because I believe there is a lot of benefit society can stand to gain from inducing that quality. I didn’t know how to do it exactly; previously, I did it by taking one person at a time down to an amazing place, and this was the first time I saw how the power of media was bestowed upon me. A lot of people have probably gone through that experience, but for me, it was kind of a game-changing moment to realize “Wow, if I could replicate this, it could be an incredibly powerful tool.”
Exploring the tunnels underneath a pyramid in El Mirador, Guatemala
©Sam Cossman
GHF: So that was the moment?
SC:
Not exactly. I wound up thinking long and hard about it, and I decided that as much as I loved my current team and company , exploration was where my heart always was and this is what I had to do. I had a sense that it was an opportunity that would likely never come back again. So, I took a literal and figurative leap: I quit my job, and long story short: I did it again, and once again another kind of viral sensation. That’s when I realized there was something here, that there was an appetite for this kind of thing out there. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I knew there was something I would try to create by blending my two loves in life: exploration and technology. That’s what sent me down this path I’ve been on for the last year and a half, and it’s been an amazing ride.
GHF: Do you think if that first viral moment hadn’t happened, you’d still be at that tech company today?
SC: No one’s ever asked me that, but probably. The way it’s sometimes portrayed in the media is “This guy quit a job he hated and blah blah blah” I think that’s what people like to hear because they can relate to that.
Wow, if I could replicate this, it could be an incredibly powerful tool.
GHF: Right, because people like that narrative. It just seems appropriate. You were miserable, you had to escape, and you were the one to do it! The rest of us, we draw inspiration from you.
SC: Right! And that’s definitely not the case, obviously, and as far as the other part is, I’m just a normal guy who’s trying to find his way as well. I did realize I had a very unusual opportunity, and if I didn’t take it then, I’d always be left wondering “What if?” So had I not experienced the virality that I did, I probably wouldn’t be thrust to the edge of feeling that I had to make that decision. So to answer your question more succinctly: yeah, I think I’d still be there.
GHF: So how were you able to take that virality and run with it? How did you pitch it to the people that sponsored you?
SC: I pitched it like this: I just did this, it was wildly popular, and I think there’s a really unique angle to take. When I was down in the volcano, there were places I couldn’t stand, places I couldn’t go to explore them. So if I had a different set of tools, not only could I explore it myself better, I could capture different perspectives that would be truly unique.
So as an example of that, something as simple as a drone turned out to be extraordinarily useful both for planning the expedition the second time and assessing safety, and also for gaining perspectives and recording this place in such a way that we could actually build a 3D model when we came back and conduct a lot of science that hadn’t been done before.
So yeah, I pitched it that I have a hunch that there’s a unique opportunity that is at the convergence of technology and exploration. I don’t know this for sure, but if you’re willing to take a bet on me, I’m willing to put my life at risk and go test this assumption. And we did, and it was. I think what we’ve really come home with a sense of what’s possible. I’m tremendously grateful to Ken Minn and Kenu.com, a Bay-area smartphone accessory company that sponsored the project, for believing in and sharing a vision, which has evolved into something bigger than I could have ever imagined.
Sam Cossman looks into the lava while descending into the volcano.
©Sam Cossman
GHF: When you were there at the volcano, on the second trip, did you think that this is what you’re going to do? Bringing media, technology, and adventure all together?
SC: Perhaps not exactly in that way, but in a general sense, yes, and that’s what I get really excited about as an explorer and as a founder of Qwake, which is a digital media company that I’m building. This idea of democratizing exploration and empowering people with the tools to enable anybody to become an explorer is core to my vision for Qwake.
One thing that repelled me a bit was a statement that had been made in an article, I can’t remember which, about how we live in a world of Google Earth, and is there really a role for an explorer in this day and age, and isn’t that kind of an outdated concept? My opinion on that is there’s never been a better time. New technologies are emerging every day for optimizing our lives and expanding our understanding of different things. You can take those same tools and apply them to getting out in the world and learning more our place in the universe. You can apply them to telling stories in more immersive ways and encouraging other people to go and experience them for themselves and tell their own stories.
Democratizing exploration [and] empowering people with the tools to enable anybody to become an explorer, is core to my vision for Qwake.
GHF: I’ve heard the sentiment before that “the age of exploration is dead!” It seems to me that it’s not exploration that’s dead, but discovering something absolutely new has become harder. You’re not going to discover a new island in the Pacific – most likely – but you may go into a jungle and find something no one’s seen before.
SC: Right. Whether you’ll stumble across a brand new island in the Pacific, probably unlikely; although crazier things have happened. Technology can field tools that help us pull back layers to the unknown, and there can still be findings, which are equally important. Again, developing an appreciation for the natural world, especially in such hostile conditions when it’s changing so dramatically, there’s never been a better time to try to induce a sense of empathy and desire to care for the planet and preserve it.
This is especially true with new mediums like virtual reality, which are still so novel and new. There are going to be new opportunities for people who want to pursue a life of creating stories and it will be more financially viable. I think there’s an opportunity to kick that door wide open, and I think there could be tremendous results that come from fostering curiosity and encouraging people to push their boundaries and to help preserve places that are important for world heritage and cultural heritage. As the world continues to get smaller and smaller that will continue to become increasingly important.
I’ve become passionate about leverage viral media to shed light on those who have spent their entire careers investing in and trying to understand something, and perhaps accelerating that in some unexpected and meaningful way.
GHF: Is that the direction you’d like Qwake to go in? Fostering that?
SC: Yeah, that’s definitely a part of our underlying ethos. Everything I do, not always will it be tied to environmental issues – though certainly, as someone who loves the planet and loves being outdoors, I would definitely peg myself as someone who bends towards that direction – but as long as there’s purpose to the exploration that I do, meaning we are seeking something that can make the world a better place, we’re seeking information that can be used to inspire some kind of positive change, whether that’s direct or indirect, then I’m glad to put Qwake’s stamp on it.
What I would not necessarily have an interest in per se, though I would certainly say there’s a place out there for it, is doing things for the sake of doing them. Stunts, for lack of a better term. I’m really passionate about using the viral media – which oftentimes focuses on doing daring things – to shed light on those who have spent their entire careers investing in and trying to understand something, and perhaps accelerating that in some unexpected and meaningful way. So, I see myself as more of a catalyst than anything; and Qwake for that matter as well.