climate change « Carbon Arts

climate change

While most of the posts in this directory relate in some way to climate change and the increasing pressure that humans are placing on the planet, through over-extraction of resources, excessive pollution, habitat loss through development and so on, the artworks presented in this tag cloud are explicitly responding to climate change. We’ve selected a handful of different types of projects to showcase, but keep exploring the site and you’ll find much more.

Distracted

Distracted, a poetic interpretation of scientific ice core samples taken in Antarctica, is the work of Brisbane-based art, design, and media production collective Kuuki. An installation of acrylic tubes housing LEDs, resin bubbles, found organic matter and sensors, Distracted is an evocative and interactive experience, evoking ice, fluids and the notion of change. A number of data sets are used to create the abstract visualisation and sonification in the work, creating a unique context for understanding human presence and impact on the planet.

Carbon Cycle

Australian artist, curator and environmentalist Richard Thomas, has been working for over 20 years in various media exploring the intersect of art, culture and environment, including the carbon cycle and climate change. His 2008 project Carbon Ecologies, exhibited a range of works by different artists on the themes of the carbon economy and management in different countries, including a video works, painting, photography and installation. Local brown coal burnt in real time to generated the electricity which lit the exhibition.

Cape Farewell Touring Exhibition

Kathy Barber, Here Today, 2005 (Neon, solar panel, cabling, battery)

From the Cape Farewell expeditions comes the touring exhibition in London, Liverpool, Hamburg, Madrid, Tokyo in 2006, 2007, 2008 and now Cranbrook, USA in 2010.

Climate Clock Initiative

The Climate Clock Initiative seeks to generate a work of public art in San Jose that draws on the technical and artistic prowess of silicon valley to engage the population in understanding and acting on climate change. Started as a competition, a number of short-listed teams have been working since 2008 to develop the winning concept, which will be revealed in 2012 at the 01SJ Biennale. The Initiative also seeks to expand the concept to other cities worldwide, to combine cutting edge technology for data measurement and display with arts’ power to communicate and engage.

Requiem for Fossil Fuels

Requiem for Fossil Fuels is the work of sound artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A). The performance features four accomplished singers chanting the requiem alongside O+A’s eight-channel digital orchestra of city sounds collected over 20 years and representing the voices our fossil-fuelled society – from helicopters to rush hour traffic to steel manufacturing. The Requiem is on tour in 2010, and was performed at St Joseph’s church in San Jose as part of the SJ01 festival to a standing ovation. O+A describe the work as a ‘timely and deep meditation on the culture, its fascinations, and its future’.

High Water Line

Highwaterline is a public art project of artist, Eve Mosher, who in 2007 walked 70 miles of coastline within New York City leaving behind her a line of blue chalk marking the level of predicted sea rise of 10 ft. As Mosher walked the line, she interacted with curious residents and was able to engage with them on the subject of climate change.

Doomed

Doomed, a video work by Australian artist, Tracey Moffatt, consists of a series of edited catastrophic moments spanning the last 50 or so years of cinema. This relentless experience of disaster becomes almost comic as we face up to our human fascination with the destructive forces of nature – including those of our own making. Doomed gives us pause to consider whether we somehow, subconsciously desire this end and whether such warnings will have the ability to turn us away from our doomed path.

Air-Port City

Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno‘s work speaks to us of an alternative way of living, through the creation of self-contained ecosystems that invite us to live in floating worlds or bubbles, free from borders and free from a potentially polluted world. He approaches the subject of climate change from the viewpoint of an architect offering a Utopic vision, one which is both inviting and frightening if we consider that we might need to create alternative worlds if we continue to allow the earth to degrade. Saraceno’s work also poetically emphasises the links between all living things through the intricate and complex web that his own creations exhibit.

Penguin Suicides

Taiwanese artist Vincent J.F Huang installed Penguin Suicides underneath the Millenium Bridge in London in March 2010 with a letter from ‘Penguins Representative Bureau of London’ appearing on his website to explain the creatures’ act of protest and personal sacrifice in the name of global warming awareness raising. The plight of animals in the North and South poles is poignantly represented by this work, which attracted much attention.

350 Earth

In the lead up to Cancun, activist organisation 350.org harnessed the power of the arts to send a message from communities all around the world through giant works that could be seen from space. Many thousands of people responded to the call with poignant images referring to species loss, sea-level rise and future generations. The full set of EARTH photos can be viewed on their Facebook page.

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