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?’
Artists Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang have been collecting plastic washed up on their local North Californian beach since 1999 and making it to art in an ongoing project called Beach Plastic. Their plastic collages and installations are photographed and bound into art books – pictured here is a stunning collection of Kraft cheese dip sticks! The Pacific Ocean alone is polluted with about 100 million tons of floating trash, 80-percent of which came from land-based sources. Through their consistent efforts, the pair are now experts on ocean pollution, and find hope through the communication of the impacts of a throw-away society that comes from their work.
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.
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.
In the Balance: Art for a Changing World was an environmental art exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney from August to October 2010. Featuring over 100 works by 30 artists, the show charted the history of engagement of the arts in Australian environmental activism as well as showcasing international and contemporary artists addressing a range of issues from waste, renewable energy, climate change denial, uranium mining and the ethics of food.
Natalie Jeremijenko’s xAirport project for the SJ01 festival is on the surface a fun zipline flight for participants to fly like a bird within a 10 foot wingspan over a constructed wetland. But of course, there are a host themes being explored through this participative performance. The recent decision by the FAA to ease the passage to personal sport-piloting threatens to put further stress on the environment, unless those small craft are encouraged to make ‘wet-landings’. Whereas air flight has contributed to date to major wetland loss through airport construction, small personal craft owners have the option to build wetland landing strips, and turn this trend around. Can we re-imagine flight and make personal airborne travel a viable alternative to infrastructure-heavy options?