Ars Electronica is a new media art festival which was established already 30 years ago. Thus, it is well visited international art event.

The exhibition had more than 2000 visitors during a week.

Melting Men is a series of art installations from the Minimum Monument project created by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo. Since 2005, Azevedo has been setting up her Melting Men is various countries around the world. Although originally intended as a critic of the role of monuments in cities, environmentalists around the world are adopting her work as climate change art. We caught up with Nele Azevedo to ask her for a bit more information about her popular art installations.

Here is interview

VINYL by Lyota Yagi

“VINYL” is a record made of the ice.

Lyota Yagi makes vinyl records from ice. First he models a record in resin then puts water and freeze it. After water turns into ice the record is ready for playing.

Yes, record is listenable but the sounds in slowly disappearing cause ice is melting. While ice is melting sound becomes gradually dimmer.

In our point of view “VINYL” by Lyota Yagi has really strong artistic concept. First of all, making music with ice is quite novel and interesting idea. Second, the disappearing sound and temporal state of installation could be interpreted as limitation of natural resources and our lives. Everything has its end.

As a parallel between our project and “VINYL”,  in “Experiment Arctic” ice acts as a controller for medium too. On the other hand, frozen water plays an important role in the concept.

Some more projects related to Polar Regions:

- Capefarewell is a research project where art is one part of it.

http://www.capefarewell.com

- Lutz Fritsch is making art with throghing a snow ball from Antarctis to Arcic:

http://www.lutz-fritsch.de/Fritsch/Lutz_Fritsch_Schneeball.html

http://vimeo.com/5214797

In the demo we are demonstrating how the level of water is going to control videos, and the interaction of audience with hairdriers. Hairdriers are constantly working and can be stopped only if the button is pressed down.

It was noticed that the change of videos wasn’t well noticeable because each clip consists of different footage. Thus, our idea is to assign to each level a color that the change will be more obvious.

And here are videos with different colors (quality is not the best because od compression):

1st level: http://vimeo.com/5349136

2nd level: http://vimeo.com/5349171

3rd level: http://vimeo.com/5349215

In order to explore the view of artists on global warming, the related works are presented below. To be mentioned, we were looking on related works in terms of topic and medium.

AMUNDSEN / I-landscape by Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag

Video and sound installation that is using ice as well. While watching the screen, the visitor is confronted with a psychoacoustic paradox, caused by sounds that can be experienced through headphones as well as a pedestal that generates deep sounds, which are absorbed by the viewer´s bodies.

amundsen

Comparing with “Experiment Arctic” project, Amundsen focuses more on sound. And as far i understand a viewer can hear sound of melting ice. On the other hand, “Experiment Arctic” focuses on ice and visuals. However, both works are referring to global warming.

N. by Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore

visualization and sonification (direct translation of data to sound) of near real-time Arctic data. N. is an ongoing, evolving composition. The N. installation expresses the isolation and environmental extremes of this remote region and addresses the importance of the region to the global ecosystem. Data and images for N. have been provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Arctic research program. A portion of the raw sound material used in N. comes from live sferics (short for atmospherics), electromagnetic transmissions of lightning from the INSPIRE VLF (very low frequency) receiver at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

N. is talking about extreme situation in Arctic, too. N. work is focused on real-time data and sound, and is not physical like current project. “Experiment Arctic” uses data from Arctic Sea Research Centre, too, but not in real-time and data it self doesn’t affect visuals or sound.

“Post Global Warming Survival Kit” by Petko Dourmana

Post Global Warming Survival Kit consists of a two-channel projection and shows infrared images of the North Sea as a post-apocalyptic landscape that the observer can only see by using a night-vision device. Dourmana portrays a dystopian scenario: a “nuclear winter” initiated by political groups or governments in order to solve the problem of global warming and the melting of the polar icecaps.

The installation is fictional and visualise our future after catastrophic global warming. Installation is totally dark and one can see only with the help of infra-red light. Thus, the prediction is that our senses will adapt to darkness and we will be able to see with the help of other lights, too.

video: http://tagr.tv/2009/petko-dourmana-post-global-warming-survival-kit

Petko Dourmana is concerned about the same issue. However, he has gone further and ironically predicts the future and even suggest a kit for survival. Moreover, he does’t see after global catastroph the end of the world but a new problem – nuclear winter.

Polar Project by Erika Blumenfeld

Erika is an american artist who works a lot with light and nature. She did a residency in Antarctica, and thus, made lots of installations and photo works about nature and light in Antarctica.

Regarding her experience of the horizon in Antarctica, Blumenfeld writes: “As I sit here, observing the way the light interacts with the ice, snow and floating crystalline particulate, I am ever fascinated by the fact that what is purportedly ‘white’ before me, is truly anything but. Virtually everything in this landscape is a prism, waiting to scatter, refract, or reflect light. The landscape literally holds light within it. One’s perception of ‘place,’ therefore, changes in every moment throughout the day, as light dissolves the edge where the earth meets the sky into a seemingly singular locus. I can look south toward the horizon three hundred times a day, and each time I am led to a new place. Experiential adaptability and an active presence is key to delineating terra firma from the intense luminosity that sometimes removes the ability to perceive three-dimensional space. It is impossible to abandon the constant interaction that occurs between the land and sky here. One peers into the horizon as if it were a tether, but it is at once a doorway and a mirror.”

We think that Polar Project is in a way related to ours because we stand for keeping polar beauty a life.

Using the observed 2007/2008 September sea ice extents as a starting point, Muyin Wang of the University of Washington, and James Overland of NOAA, predict an expected value for a nearly sea ice free Arctic in September by the year 2037.

(PhysOrg.com) — A nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summer may happen three times sooner than scientists have estimated. New research says the Arctic might lose most of its ice cover in summer in as few as 30 years instead of the end of the century.

Anyway the truth is that ice is shrinking and sooner or later we will have ice free Arctic Sea. That means serious changes in global climate, wildlife cycle…

The September 2007 rate of sea ice decline since 1979 is now approximately 10 percent per decade, or 72,000 square kilometers per year.

September 2007 sea ice extent was 4.28 million square kilometers , compared to 5.57 million square kilometers  in September 2005.

The last images of Arctic Sea ice in this year (May 2009).

Sea ice extent averaged over the month of April 2009 was 14.58 million square kilometers. This was 710,000 square kilometers above the record low for April in 2007, and 420,000 square kilometers below the 1979 to 2000 average.

The good news are that ice extend of 2009 is bigger than absolute minimum in 2007. However the ice extend of 2009 is still below average of years 1979 to 2000.

Compared to previous Aprils, April 2009 is near the middle of the distribution (10th lowest of 31 years). The linear trend indicates that for the month of April, ice extent is declining by 2.8% per decade, an average of 42,400 square kilometers of ice per year.

A small temperature increase at the poles leads to still greater warming over time, making the poles the most sensitive regions to climate change on Earth. Thus, Arctic Sea ice plays a big role in global climate change. And global climate change affects all of us and whole world.

Arctic Sea ice also affects the movement of ocean waters. Water below sea ice has a higher concentration of salt and is more dense than surrounding ocean water, and so it sinks. In this way, sea ice contributes to the ocean’s global “conveyor-belt” circulation. Cold, dense, polar water sinks and moves along the ocean bottom toward the equator, while warm water from mid-depth to the surface travels from the equator toward the poles. Changes in the amount of sea ice can disrupt normal ocean circulation, thereby leading to changes in global climate

Moreover, North pole is a home for many animals, birds, and fishes. They are very sensitive to the change of temperature and environment. For example, polar bears are starving because they cannot find food anymore.

http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/articles/2006/2006_seaice.html