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?’
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.
TrashTrack is the work of MIT’s Senseable Cities Lab, and part of a vision for creating behavioural change through pervasive technologies. By attaching sensors to individual items of rubbish and visualising its passage through the waste stream, the project raises awareness about waste disposal and the impacts of our smallest decisions, such as the purchase of a disposable coffee cup.
Public Smog is a conceptual work by artist Amy Balkin, which seeks to challenge the wisdom of carbon trading (and the trading of other pollutants such as sulphur dioxide). By purchasing these credits and presenting them as a public park in the air, Balkin confronts the economic notion of clean air as a public commons and the use of property rights to solve problems of air pollution. The work points to the difficulties inherent in communicating and addressing the issue of emissions reduction, and serves as a stimulating departure point for inter-disciplinary debate.
The Canary Project is Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler, two Americans who have successfully set out to meet the aims of this organisation to energise action on climate change through the production of visual art, design and events that increase understanding of climate change with the public. Since 2006, The Canary Project has generated and supported a diverse body of work, and remains one of only two US arts organisations solely dedicated to art about climate change.
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.