Creative solutions for a changing climate
Here’s where we share all the cool projects we’ve come across. Ones that inspire, surprise and touch the heart. In all these ways we see how artists open new avenues for change. Click on the categories below to browse our directory of projects. Enjoy!
Birding the Future is a sound and stereoscopic installation that brings extinct birds back to life. Reflecting on the role of birds as warning messengers and their disappearance as part of the ‘sixth extinction’, the project asks: “What does it mean that we can only see and hear extinct species through technology? How can traditional ecological knowledge be combined with technological advances to increase awareness of our role in the environment?”
Artist Jiayu Liu uses wind data from 40 Chinese cities to power a poetic installation that seeks to test the boundaries of data representation at the same time connecting us to a powerful force of nature. An innovative use of city data, we’re excited by what the work of this RCA graduate might bring to the realisation of more sensitive and sustainable urban environments.
Could it take a a synthetic representation of nature to jolt us back into re-appreciating its beauty and our reliance upon it? That’s one the questions Pierre Proske is seeking to explore with his Brickets. So named for their chirping sounds and brickish size, the Brickets reinterpret data from local environmental sources such as the nearest home’s water usage, into animal like calls, which rise and ebb in response to one another, much like a synthesised colony of frogs, cicadas or crickets.
KiloWatt Hours, by Sydney based artist Tega Brain, uses lasers to inscribe in space the fluctuations of energy used by the surrounding building over time. KiloWatt Hours thus converts energy meter data into the readable form of an ‘energy clock.’, and the audience is prompted to consider the invisible consumption of energy in everyday life. Over time the laser light fades, and KiloWatt Hours forgets itself, in the same way we let our own energy use slip from memory.
A simple representation of Sydney’s climate data, Mitchell Whitelaw’s Measuring Cup makes it possible to hold the past 150 years of temperature information in the palm of your hand. Generated and printed using 3D technology, Measuring Cup uses temperature averages, like the rings of a tree, only stacked vertically. The result is delicate and beautiful, like the climate it represents, and it raises the question ‘what shape will it take in 10, 20 or 50 years?’
The UNEP Art for the Environment initiative aims to generate environmental awareness using the universal language of art as a catalyst for individuals, communities and leaders to focus on environmental values. UNEP promotes the creation and installation of a growing number of exhibits around the world, in conjunction with major events such as World Environment Day (5 June) and the UNEP Champions of the Earth awards. A number of these exhibitions have been focussed on cimate change, including Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock (pictured) – an installation of artists Neil Bell & Ola Sivhed, consisting of a swinging pendulum of melting ice.
The Secret Life of Things was a series of animations, commissioned by EPA Victoria and company Eco Innovators, for the State of Design festival 2010 in Melbourne, communicating the life-cycle impacts of common products. Life-pscyclology – the secret life of the phone is one of them. Created by Layla Acaroglu, it depicts a phone going to therapy to try and discover why he’s been abadoned and how he can emark on a new life – based on the valuable materials contained within him. Very cute!
This touching, award-winning theatrical performance Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer reveals the human condition at the end of the world when seas have risen to overtake most of humanity. Using a masterful combination of animation, puppetry and song, artist Tim Watts charts the adventures of an average guy sent to the bottom of the sea to find another version of Earth hidden in the Earth’s core. Humorous, but ultimately damning, the performance is a warning tale for adults and children alike of what we stand to lose if we continue to bury our heads in the sand.
WasteLandscape, formed from 65,000 discarded CDs around inflatable hills, installed at the Halle d’Aubervilliers in Paris, is a glistening reminder of the value of an everyday, soon-to-be-obsolete object. The exhibit will travel around the world before being recycled. Architect Clémence Eliard and artist Elise Morin are committed to demonstrating the role of art role in society, raising consciousness of environmental problems.
Nuage Vert, or Green Cloud, is a public art installation by artists HeHe performed in Helsinki in 2008 in collaboration with Helsinki Energy. By projecting green light onto the smoke emitted from a city power station the changing output of the station is visible. This provided a means for communicating the results of efforts to reduce energy use in the district, whereby campaigns to turn off lights, and so forth, had visible effect.Helsinki Energy initiated a release of real-time energy information as a result. A clever and simple way to provide a feedback loop to the public, Nuage Vert looks is seeking funds to do the same in Paris.