Carbon Arts

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!

5 Recent Things

Brickets

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

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.

Measuring Cup

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?’

Newsmotion

Modelled on any other health clinic, Natalie Jeremijenko’s NYU xClinic prescribes treatments for your environmental aches and pains. Newsmotion is a prototype for a roaming bulletin board which can be retro-fitted to your bike wheels, and delivers data to those around you based on where you are. For instance, onlookers might be made aware of pedestrian and cyclist fatality statistics for the very corner they’re standing on, thereby bringing the data to life.

Fish Bellies

A new interactive sculpture at the Texas State University Campus aims to draw comparisons between it’s students and it’s local river life. Representative of a school of fish, visitors can interact with Fish Bellies by climbing on it and influencing its colour changes. It’s creators, JB Public Art, hope that by drawing comparisons between the social behaviour of fish and of students, the latter can become curious and engaged in the ecology and biology specific to their campus.

5 Random Things

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.

Park Spark

The Park Spark project is an urban intervention that questions our waste infrastructure and engages people directly in re-imagining uses for waste products. Artist Matthew Mazotta has created a system that literally transforms dog waste into energy in a New York City park, avoiding waste to landfill. By turning a crank dog-owners power a methane digester and provide the fuel source for an adjacent gas lamp. This ‘eternal flame’ will burn until a member of the public suggests an alternative use for this ‘excess’ resource. Part education, part provocation and part solution, this innovative arts project reconnects people to their environment in a very tangible way.

Penguin Suicides

Taiwanese artist Vincent J.F Huang installed Penguin Suicidesunderneath 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.

Tidy Street

Tidy Street is the name of a residential street in Brighton and also the name of a project that engages residents in reducing their energy consumption. The high-tech – smart meters in every home – is combined with the low-tech – chalk sprayed on the road surface, to demonstrate the community’s progress in cutting carbon emissions. Local artist Snub was commissioned to do the artwork, which showcases significant progress – up to 30% reductions in some homes – and creates a great conversation piece for passersby.

Art at the Dump - Recology

The Recology Artist in Residence program in San Francisco started twenty years ago in 1990 to invite artists to produce works sourced from the waste stream, as part of a program to educate the public at a time when curb-side recycling was introduced. This exhibition, at Intersection Arts, celebrates the impressive body of work generated from materials that would otherwise have gone to waste. The artists involved often became strong spokespeople for environmental issues following their experience.