There’s a lot of discussion about the role of dystopian art in creating new stories about climate and the environment. I have to say, if I was a kid, Mark Coreth’s sculpture of a melting polar bear would scare the bejayzus out of me.
Ice Bear is in London’s Trafalgar Square from today.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
We’ve arrive back in the apartment after our second day in Copenhagen. I will refrain from saying we’re here for Cop15, because, while I’m interested in what’s going on in there, I’m really here to see the creative responses collected in this place at this time. That isn’t to say we didn’t go to the Bella Center, we did, but it’s not our primary goal.
I had the opportunity to check in with Martin Rosengaard of Wooloo.org while Miranda was delayed in London, as well as get a very helpful and personal tour of the city on bike by our host (and sterling scenographer)Â Sara Vilslev, a friend from the 2007 Prague Quadrennial.
On Sunday we headed to the Bright Green Expo at the Forum. It is the concurrent trade show for green tech during COP15. There was a promise of the inclusion of cultural programming, so it seemed like a good place to start. The Cultural programming really consisted of a DJ/VJ set for about an hour by CPH:DOX remixing Cities on Speed. We moved on pretty quickly: green-tech (good or green-washing) is green-tech. We’re into it, but it’s better covered elsewhere.
We then continued on to view the CO2 Cube floating by the Tycho Brahe Planetarium. After the artist renderings  was surprised to see it’s construction was of shipping containers and that it had media on 2 of 4 sides. They were recalibrating the video, but we got some footage you can see from posts yesterday. We only strayed away for a little while so that we could wander towards the Downtown Hopenhagen Live area until we spoke with Deanne LeRue of the Meridian Health Foundation and Millennium Art and Steve Mason of Obscrua Digital.
Afterwards we returned for some quality time with the work at Hopenhagen Live. This green glowing cluster of portable exhibition rooms showcased policy, the integration of sustainable solutions into the city scape and some creative interpretations highlighting everyday relationships to the environment. A favorite was The Apartment, seen in a quick video here:
We wandered to the Polar Ice Bear to check it’s melt status, slowed by the freezing temperatures we’ve dipped into. After dinner we headed over to the CO2 Cube Reception, which was a high class affair, no pictures, but we did catch some night footage of the cube.
We did miss the demonstrations going south, which you’ll likely know resulted in hundreds of arrests. We did hear the helicopters and sirens as Police sprung into action, preemptively arresting people after a group of anarchists started egging them on. Tensions are a little high now, though the majority of all demonstrations have been peaceful.
With everything going on, we felt it was important to offer some guidance around town. So, to help others better find the arts activities occurring in Copenhagen, I spent the rest of the night trying to get everything onto our events calendar and created a google map for those who want to find their way around, guided by Eco-Arts.
Monday is now wrapping up and the center of the city, all the way to the Bella Center is policed to within an inch of it’s life. However, we both leave (though I return just 24 hours later) on Tuesday, so Monday became about trying to see everything that was open (like many cities, cultural institutions in Copenhagen are closed on Mondays).
We began by heading to the wrong address for the Poulsen Gallery. But, once we found our mistake, we were able to make it to the installation of Ghost Forest in Thorvaldsens Plads, right around the corner from the real Poulsen Gallery. It’s quite breath-taking, especially with a proper background in the process of getting these stumps here. But, even as we seemed to be some of a few onlookers, there was a constant police presence here and along the canal.
LED at 7 meters high, where the sea will rise here if Greenland's ice sheet melts.
The Poulsen Gallery has been turned over to The Colonel (said phonetically and not as one who serves fried chicken or in the military), the identity of french artist Thierry Geoffroy, as his HQ for a number of evolving projects during COP15. This is serving as the headquarters for the Yes Men and their SurvivaBalls (registered trademark), a series of Critical Runs, Facebook projects, and whatever else they come up with while here. It’s advised to check in with them regularly. Upon my return, I’ll likely head back over to try and talk to some of them about what they are doing. We were lucky to be invited to a semi-junket event, which we’ll get to in a moment.
With the short daylight moments dwindling, we walked to the Bella Center, hoping to find the path set by Glowing Climate, which we were able to find some of as we got closer.
It should be remarked that the Bella Center is not in the center of Copenhagen. It is, from our lodgings, 8.4km or 5.2 miles. From the center of town it is 5.9km or 3.7 miles.
While we didn’t see much until right up to the Bella Center, as the lights from 7m began to appear overhead. Â Once we were there the walk was worth it. The Pulse of the Earth is a fantastically creepy piece and really lends to the night time, what I’d venture to call semi-apocalyptic scene that is the entrance to the barricaded center. This is entirely appropriate, COP15 itself is semi-apocalyptic. Between the pulsing red lights of the installation, the cold an huddled hopeful observers lined up at the fences, scores of police, Avaaz.org‘s and Climate Action Network‘s Jumbotron showing the award for fossil of the day, press, vegans dressed in animal costumes pass out bags for converts and the ground littered with pamphlets (really now), it was all a bit amazing to see.
As the talks let out, we hopped the metro back into town. We had diner and made it to the Poulsen Gallery event, were we saw a demonstration of the SurviaBall (still a registered trademark), were treated to a song from the Red Suited Climate Debt Agents (accompanied by the green suited Mr. Green from Oxfam), and milled about the gallery while that day’s talks were remixed for ambiance.
We made out way home, finding that it too was lined with the flashing red markers from 7m, just as the reports of clashes between activists and police in Christiania started to make it into our news feed. I had planned to visit Christiania upon returning from the sojourn to London, but that’s now differently colored. Word on the street was that the police had left the area, to some great extent, alone, as to focus on the Bella Center and downtown. As I write, it is being evacuated and those in cafés are being told to leave or be arrested.
It’s getting colder here in Copenhagen, but tensions are starting to boil over.
Tomorrow we both head to London. Miranda will continue to head on home, but I will be there for the Future Arcola launch event at City Hall. I will also , finally, meet William Shaw of the RSA in person, after missing him by hours in Copenhagen.
More recap soon. When I return the museums and exhibition halls will be open, while parts of town are shut down. And I’m curious as to see how we move around the city when Obama arrives on Friday.
Finally got to see some of RETHINK; it’s a wonderful exhibition. The Saraceno is gigantic, but the human biosphere, suspended high in the air, was closed for repair today so I wan’t able to go in it, which saved my vertigo.
Allora & Calzadilla’s A Man Screaming Is Not A Dancing Bear (2008) is stunning. Filmed in New Orleans, post-Katrina, it’s strange and elegaic. Repeating through the film are moments in which a barely-glimpsed man drums on some abandonded Venetian blinds. It lends an angry, jumpy soundtrack to the slow pans across water-stained walls.
Kerstin Eregenzinger’s Study for Longing/Seeing (2008) was unsettling in a very different way. Sheets of dark, lifeless rubber suddenly twitch unexpectedly, driven by strange spider-arms beneath them. It feels like a landscape that’s coming alive, animated by some strange pulse. “The work,†says the catalogue, “Is a reactive installation using data from seismographs and sensor-based structures to simulate a landscape and its changes. The installation responds partly to movements in the earth outside the exhibition building, and partly to audience movements in the exhibition room itself…â€
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
For those in or interested in the Arts Events in Copenhagen, here is a map we’ve compiled and our events list, so you can make you plans or just follow along!
Let us know if you know of something that is missing!
[iframe http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117801046156617686563.00047aa4ea181e996f409&ll=55.660085,12.576696&spn=0.062822,0.036551&output=embed 500 500]View COP15 Arts Locations in a larger map
[iframe http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/sustainablepractice.org/embed?showTitle=0&showCalendars=0&mode=AGENDA&height=800&wkst=1&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&src=sustainablepractice.org_c75bhd8jem2lkt04vpvo22hsoo%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%23528800&ctz=Europe%2FCopenhagen 500 800]
EDIT: I see Paul Kingsnorth has just blogged this photo at the Dark Mountain Project with the caption: “Which is obviously a relief…â€
… though the sign on the door says “Closed.â€
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
We interview Deanne LaRue and Scott Mason today. They are both working on the CO2 Cube by the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen. We’re saving the INterview for later, but here is some footage as it was getting dark about then once the sun is nowhere to be seen.
I met the family who have agreed to host my brief stay in Copenhagen. They were warm, and extremely welcoming. If the idea behind wooloo.org’s New Life Copenhagen initiative – which matches visitors to host families – is to embody the a new openness, then it may well be working. They are not the sort of people whose paths would normally cross with mine; Lars is involved in local politics as a right-wing politician. Gitte, his partner, says the Danish rarely invite people into their homes. But that is the point. Last night, over tea, we talked, all thoroughly enjoying the strangeness of it.
I wonder if we will get around to completing the questions in the New Life Copenhagen Guest/Host book that was left by my bed for us all to fill inF?
Would you describe yourself as an argumentative person?
Have you ever discriminated against somebody?
Have you ever been a victim of war?
Find an item in the home of your host that you find strange.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
Perhaps “Live” is a bit misused here, but we are in Copenhagen right now. I got in yesterday morning and Miranda, after some delays, made it last night. My host, Sara Vilslev, and I made it to Downtown Hopenhagen and met the Wooloo.org/New Life Copenhagen Guys. We also saw a number of pavilions promoting greening living in creative ways.
We’re about to head out for a fullday, but I wanted to share some pictures from our night before we get to far along!
Bikes are the standard in Copenhagen.
Downtown Hopenhagen lit up
Martin from Wooloo.org records pledges to never drink Coca-Cola again for the Yes Men.
Bike power Disco.
My contract for a sustainable burial, should I die during COP15.
That is not Brad Pitt on stage at Hopenhagen.
At Culture|Futures listening to the architect Jan Gehl talking about how bicycles have humanised Copenhagen, and how crucial they will be to the new urbanism.
Interesting how many hits this YouTube video has been getting in the last few days.
The boggling incredulity with which the video’s American viewers seem to greet the vision of bicyclists (“LOL socialism in action.Europe will soon be going back to the stone age. The sooner, the betterâ€) is a great reminder of a how wide the cultural gulf is, sometimes.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
Ghost Forest – London from RSA Arts & Ecology on Vimeo.
It’s an amazing achievement, to unlock this space for this kind of exhibit. The crowds I saw were drawn to the sheer strangeness and hugeness of the shapes of the trees, which are supposed to link the ideas of deforestation and climate change. Angela Palmer has done something remarkable in persuading the Mayor’s office to let her use this space for this work. Its scale and ambition makes the current occupant of the Fourth Plinth look rather irrelevant.
But, being honest, I’m not sure it works that well, either as a polemic or as art; I’m not sure it left people convinced. Palmer had originally envisaged the stumps as standing straight up, which would have made it easier to understand them as the leavings of human greed, rather than the lumber they look like. I’m guessing that it simply wasn’t practical to display the stumps like that. And the huge text billboards seemed to be as much about Palmer’s struggle to realise the work, with Antony Gormley saying “the project can’t be doneâ€, as they were about the issue of deforestation and simply added a level of Fitzcaraldo-in-reverse hubris. (This is like dragging the rainforest to the opera-house rather than vice versa).
When artists create events like this why don’t they let the art speak for itself and instead work closely with an NGO who can make the polemic explicit on site, and far more effectively?
Anyway, please disagree with me.
www.ghostforest.org
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
