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?’
Sun Boxes is an immersive environment of sound and site. Consisting of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels, there is a different guitar sample in each box playing simultaneously in an evolving composition. Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers creating a unique self-guided experience. There are no batteries involved, the Sun Boxes are reliant on the sun. When the sun sets the music stops. The piece changes as the length of the day changes, making the participants aware of the cycle of the day.
Solar ballerinas – or audio tutus – is the work of Benoit Maubrey, who has developed a number of electro-acoustic scupltures. The tutus respond to the sun’s intensity by emitting sound that corresponds to the level of light. The tutus also pick up on local sounds and feed these back, generating sound loops. As the dancer moves the white noise and sampled sounds change, creating a performance that is fascinating and hard to ignore.
Greenmeme’s River Livers are constructed wetland sculptures that aim to raise awareness about water quality and habitat loss. The sculptures actively break down pollutants in the water, and at the same time communicate environmental data, such as PH, to onlookers through colour-coded LED lights.
Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade took their studio name from the Japanese idea of kuuki which considers ‘things we take for granted but cannot live without.’ Interestingly, the literal translation is ‘atmosphere.’ Cleverly combining these ideas, Every One, Every Day is a 27m3 cube, which is roughly equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gas produced by, yep, every one of us, every single day. Made from recycled plastic supplied by Visy (and returned to Visy at the end of the festival), the temporary installation is animated by an internal LED-lit sphere which responds to energy grid data from the Australian Energy Market. As part of the Vivid Festival, Every One, Every Day is a big hulking reminder of the impact we each make on our life sustaining planet.
Flow by Owl Project and Ed Carter, is a remarkable new public art work in Newcastle that explores the relationship between art, environment, design and industry. Commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic games as part of its cultural program, Flow is at once tidemill, river monitor and electo-acoustic performance. Inside the mill are housed three pieces of musical machinery: the Salinity Sequencer, the Bubble Synth and a Laser Turbidatron, all of which create unique real-time soundscapes in response to hourly river water samples and audience interaction.