This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

ClimateKeys, like climate change, has spread and become a world event. This can only be seen as a reflection of how connected we all are as humans on this beautiful planet. The United Nations 23^rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) is coming, and so is ClimateKeys. In these keyboard conversations around the world, people will be afforded the space to think about climate change, and the opportunity to talk about it with others. Such is the combination of music and speech; using music as an introduction to the topic gives us a chance to think about this all-encompassing phenomenon, and it settles us down into a state of relaxed (rather than frantic) thought in order to have a more positive dialogue.

The London launch of ClimateKeys took place on the 25^th of October, and was a gala of music and speech. Ten pianists performed various pieces of classical music, interspersed with three speeches. Hannah van den Brul, who has herself written academically about music and climate change, discussed ClimateKeys’ collaborative efforts with experts to spark conversations about climate change, as well as the “glocal” aim of local keyboard conversations happening across the globe. ClimateKeys was also honored to have Nicole Lawler, mother of Zane Gbangbola, as its special guest. Nicole spoke about a campaign to expose the truth about her son’s death due to landfill poisons leaking into their home during the 2014 floods in the UK (with suggested links to climate change). Guest speaker Sir Jonathon Porritt referred to the diversity of speech topics that ClimateKeys will include, ranging from re-orienting communities and behavior modification, to inter-disciplinary solutions and climate change art – a real reflection of how climate change touches all aspects of society and human life. Porritt also drew a connection between the London launch and a ClimateKeys concert which took place simultaneously in Bosnia where Professor of Climatology and COP delegate Goran Trbic emphasized the importance of international common aims in order to build on the Paris Agreement. This not only highlighted the significance of the event and topic to that country, but also demonstrated the interconnectivity inherent to climate change; our actions will affect others, and theirs will affect us.

The fact that pianists have come forward to take part in ClimateKeys is, in itself, no small achievement. Concert pianist training goes hand in hand with a self-focused approach that favors a concert being purely about a pianist’s mastery of the instrument. However, the power of climate change to bring people together and push them out of their comfort zones and normal routines is such that here we are with over 60 concert pianists to date ready and willing to give up the spotlight and share the stage with speakers and even audience members. This is to be applauded. But this also means that the road to ClimateKeys has not always been a smooth one. On average, only one in every fifty pianists contacted responds. As a result, ClimateKeys is still missing a world-renowned concert pianist. An international piano star joining ClimateKeys would make the initiative more visible on the world stage (visibility itself being a barrier to awareness on climate change as it is arguably tricky for anyone to actually “see” the climate). If there are any climate change activist-musicians out there who know of such a pianist, then kindly connect them to Lola Perrin (lola@climatekeys.com).

In contrast to pianists, speakers have been coming in thick and fast. It seems as though there are climate change experts across the disciplines who sense the potential of this forum for positive conversations and they embrace the invitation to give a talk without the use of projection or PowerPoint; a ClimateKeys principle in order to avoid academic presentations. In the words of George Marshall, “The single most powerful thing an individual can do about climate change is to talk about it,” and this is what ClimateKeys proposes. Some of the best thinkers in the world are on board with the concept, and are keen not only to give talks, but also to facilitate genuine conversations (not Q&As) with the audience. This strengthens the resolve of all involved and heightens the excitement of this particular artistic response to COP23 and climate change.

One of said speakers is none other than myself.  I have chosen to speak about the potential for theatre to offer an alternative site of meaning-making around climate change, as well as creating space for thought. This was inspired by my recent geography research on climate change theatre, and, I think, is a good reflection of the interdisciplinary approach that ClimateKeys has embraced.  Along with my melding of drama and geography, there will be three pianists playing classical pieces which they have chosen – pieces that resonate with them on the theme of climate change from composers Debussy, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Karen Tanaka. The concert takes place on the 11^th of November in St Cuthbert’s Church in West Hampstead, London; truly mingling the worlds of geography, science, the arts and religion.

With this and over 30 other concerts in nine countries throughout November 2017, and over 100 concert musicians and guest speakers in 20 countries currently signed up, ClimateKeys is a truly “glocal” affair. The need for alternative ways of considering climate change are apparent from this response. We are all creative beings, and we all create in different ways. This is why scientific data appeals to some and art appeals to others, why numbers attract some and music attracts others. ClimateKeys is part of new artistic collaborations with science that provide alternative pathways to action on climate change, and the launch is the first step on our journey to increasing our environmental awareness and positive response to climate change.

(Top image: Hannah van den Brul delivering her talk  ‘Introduction to ClimateKeys’ at the London Launch event.)

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Julia Marques is a climate change dramatist based in London.  She has just completed her research exploring theatre’s potential as an alternative site of meaning-making around climate change that allows people space to think about its re-presentation in the performance space.  She is most interested in the intersection between the arts, environmentalism and climate change science.

About Artists and Climate Change:

Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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As an artist, my goal is to elicit transformative sensory, cognitive and visceral experiences. To do so, I use cutting-edge technology as a vehicle for biomimicry (nature-inspired design). My approach is based on the study of humans’ innate tendency to seek connections with nature. According to the biophilia hypothesis that was introduced by American biologist Edward O. Wilson in 1984, humans are attracted to, and desire connections with, natural elements such as landscapes, light, and changes in light. As an artist, tapping into this desire provides me with a greater understanding of what motivates people and what type of artistic content can truly be transformative.

I have long been fascinated with people turning their eyes towards the sky for meaning and guidance. Our skyward gaze has shaped art, science, religion, agriculture, industry, and worldviews across this globe since prehistoric times. The sky is present in most of our myths; its mystery is endlessly mesmerizing.

There is only one sky, but the ways we see and interpret it are infinite.

I create art that seek to express the essence of our collective gaze. Using artificial intelligence (AI) as an artistic tool, I combine numerous points of view into individual archetypal images – AIEye. Algorithms, developed in collaboration with AI computer scientists Mihai Jalobeanu and Nebojsa Jojic, search the Internet and identify different views of the sky based on time, location, air pollution, and meteorological data. These complex mathematical systems review all of the found images, analyze their salient properties, and summarize the data. The resulting artwork captures the sky as seen through varying human perspectives.

Skies Epitomized is a series of prints that depict the essence of the sky in a specific time and place. Each individual sky is paired with a person from the region looking on to create the illusion that the viewer is seeing the sky through their eyes.

Skies Epitomized, Polar Climate. Photo by Joe Freeman.

Skies Epitomized, 9/11. Photo by Joe Freeman.

In Lost Skies, two large-scale lightboxes depict contrasting views of the polluted sky – one based on the perspective of a climate change skeptic, the other based on images of the sky found in polluted areas of the world.

Lost Skies, Climate Change Through The Eyes Of A Skeptic and Believer. Photo by Maja Petric.

AIEye combines numerous points of view into individual archetypal images. The algorithm searches the Internet for images of the world affected by climate change-related events. It looks at all of these images and keeps bits and pieces of them, using them as brushes to paint the essence of what everyone saw.

Throughout the exhibition of Lost Skies at 4Culture Gallery in Seattle, I used AIEye to generate new visualizations of the sky that reflected current events (e.g. Hurricane Maria, the British Columbia wildfires, the melting Arctic ice, etc.). The images are published here.

Each of these visualizations is composed of thousands of images returned by the Internet image search for a particular topic. The images have a deep zoom effect that provides viewers with the ability to explore the content within the content based on the Internet image search results.

In Skies Epitomized of War and Peace, I juxtaposed what one sees gazing at the sky in peaceful parts of the world with the sky as it is seen in areas of conflict and unrest. The first and last boxes show the essence of people’s skyward gaze in Iceland and New Zealand, which, according to the Global Peace Index, are considered the most peaceful countries in the world. The second and fourth box show a view of the sky in the most conflicted areas such as Iraq and Syria. The third box shows the gaze at the universal sky.

Skies Epitomized of War and Peace: Sky Epitome Of The Icelandic, Sky Epitome Of The Iraqi, Sky Epitome Of The Universal, Sky Epitome Of The Syrian, Sky Epitome Of The New Zealand Sky. Photo by Maja Petric.

(Top image: Lost Skies, California Wildfires. Photo by Maja Petric.)

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Maja Petric is a new media artist. She uses cutting edge technologies to create art installations that evoke the sublimity of nature. On this topic, she has received a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a Master’s from New York University. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally, including at y, Henry Art Gallery, Microsoft Research Gallery, Matadero, Medialab Prado, etc. She has been awarded a Microsoft Research Residency Award, Richard Kelly Light Art Award, Doctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, and has been nominated for an Arts Innovator Award, FastCo. Innovation by Design Award, International Light Art Award, etc.

About Artists and Climate Change:

Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

The third in a year-long series on artists who are making the topic of water a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances and publications that are popping up in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

Vibha Galhotra

I met Vibha Galhotra, a New Delhi-based conceptual artist, at a talk she gave recently in conjunction with Unfiltered: An Exhibition About Water, which is currently on view at the William Benton Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Connecticut.** The show’s themes include: “the power of water and the changing landscape; water pollution and biology; water scarcity; climate change; the physical properties of water; and the Connecticut River.” Vibha’s piece in the exhibition, a 10+ minute film entitled Manthan, as well as much of her work in recent years, confronts the critical condition of the Yamuna River, which flows through the city of Delhi and is a source of water for more than 70% of the population.

The Yamuna River

The Yamuna River, originating in the Himalayas, is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Although relatively clean further upstream, in Delhi, India’s cultural and political capital, it contains highly toxic industrial and domestic waste, untreated sewage, animal carcasses and other dumped garbage. In her remarks, Vibha referred to the Yamuna as a “cesspool,” a “dead” entity. She bemoans the reality that despite the river’s exceptionally polluted condition, practicing Hindus continue to bathe in what they consider to be its sacred waters as a means of cleansing their sins.

Sediments

In a 2014 series called Sediments, Vibha used the actual toxic black sludge from the Yamuna River as a medium for creating abstract, large scale paintings. She sees the series as a way of voicing the contradictions between the traditional spiritual holiness of the river and its reality as an unholy, dying body of water as well as the idiocy of officials who conduct religious rituals at the river rather than clean its waters.

Vibha Galhotra “painting” with Yamuna River Sludge, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Vibha Galhotra, Installation View of Sediments and Other Untitled…, at the Jack Shainman Gallery, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Flow

Similarly, her series, Flow is also inspired by the river. Using thousands of ghungroos, small metallic bells worn by classical Indian and Pakistani dancers, sewn onto fabric, Vibha created two and three dimensional pieces that resemble topographical maps “of the river passing by the city I live in.” The ghungroos form a complex mosaic in lovely shades of  gold, copper and other earth tone colors that stand in stark contrast to the ecological disaster that the artist is addressing. She explained that she is “creating an organically sewn, aesthetic surface to invite the viewer to the clean and beautiful facade to talk about the chaos behind.”

Vibha Galhotra, Installation View of Flow (2015) in ABSUR -CITY -PITY -DITY at Jack Shainman Gallery, Nickel-coated ghungroos, fabric, polyurethane coat, 129 x 93 1/4 x 112 1/2 ins. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Detail image of ghungroos. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Manthan

Manthan, Vibha’s contribution to the Benton exhibition, is, as the label to the film suggests, an “homage to the river.” Alternating between aerial shots and close ups, Manthan takes the viewer on a haunting journey down the toxic Yamuna, revealing industrial structures that contribute to the pollution, garbage coated coasts, images of sludge that form abstract forms in acidic colors and waste pouring out of drainage pipes forming foam that moves through the water like icebergs. Eventually, four “fishermen” wearing black wetsuits appear poling slowly down the river. They fold a pure white length of fabric that stands in stark contrast to the black sludge as if to purify the dead water. The film concludes as the men dunk a white sheet into the water and pull it out to reveal its toxic, mucky surface.

At the conclusion of Vibha Golhatra’s talk, she summarized her goals as an artist whose work is imbued with social responsibility: “I am posing questions through these works. I am not answering them.”

(Top image: A Hindu man at prayer amidst the industrial foam of the Yamuna River. Courtesy of AP.)

**I have two mixed media paintings in the Unfiltered exhibition entitled, Rising Tides, #3 and Water Wars, #2.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist, writer, and educator whose work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Susan’s latest bodies of work focus on the threat of rising tides caused by climate change, the trillions of pieces of plastic in our oceans and the wars that are predicted to occur in the future over access to clean water. Susan is also the co-creator of two interactive public art projects: The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and Home, which calls attention to homelessness and the lack of affordable housing.

About Artists and Climate Change:

Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog