April 15, 2007 at 12:58 pm · Filed under Art, New Work, News Broadcast, The Future, Narrative, Live Data, Time, Science, Jane D. Marsching, North Pole, Spectacle, Noise, Information, Experience
New work made for New Climates
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How can we make sense of the climate change predictions in the news? What does a seven degree temperature rise in the Arctic really mean? How do we absorb scientific information into our everyday lives?
The news headlines that came up on March 21, 2007, when I entered “north pole” into the Google News search ranged from stories of endurance and adventure (such as kiteboarders surfing our farthest north) to movies set at the Pole and watercolor classes offered in North Pole, Alaska. From heroic achievements to Hollywood spectacle, from small community experiences to the geopolitics of climate change, the circumpolar north is our cultural repository for our deepest fears and wildest imaginings of the past, present, and future of our planet.
Rising North takes monthly temperature readings from the North Pole data buoys and visualizes the rise in temperature of 7 degrees Celsius over a century (until 2107) that some climatologists predict for the region. Standard temperature color choices range from pale blue at –37 degrees to warm orange at 9 degrees. The audio combines background shortwave frequency static with the voice of an opera singer singing the top headlines from Google News about the North Pole on March 21, 2007.
The video takes the subject of our direst climate predictions and renders them with a collision of experiences: the visual component is an economical color field shift from cooler to warmer hues, while the audio contains a traditional operatic voice recounting the media headlines, laden with emotional drama and fighting to rise above the static.
– Jane D. Marsching
As a rendering of scientific data and media reports on climate change in the Arctic, Rising North gestures towards our incapacity to truly absorb and process the magnitude of this information. Rather than recapitulating words or numbers, the video offers emotive fields of experience (both in the visual and auditory spectra) through which we might derive a new, if strikingly incomplete, understanding of “our farthest north.” Rising North, through its ambiguous color modulations and operatic voice that hovers at the limits of intelligibility, may propose that our comprehension of the Arctic is already necessarily partial—it is a region most of us will never encounter first-hand—even as it becomes a heated locus in the climate change discussion. By selecting opera to be the vehicle of conveyance, Marsching also suggests that the Arctic has become a stage upon which the media spectacle of “global warming” is being enacted; we will listen intently to the dramatic tale of its transformation, thawing and steady climb into the frightening upper registers.
April 13, 2007 at 9:16 am · Filed under Art, Geography, Live Data, Ben Engebreth, Mapping
A New Component of Personal Kyoto (2005-6)
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More than anything else, Personal Kyoto is an information project that aims to give users feedback on their individual level of electric use. The idea stems from the realization that few of us have any idea of what our electric use really is and that this lack of information is an impediment to reducing our use. For New York City residents, Personal Kyoto works by gathering individual electric use data from a user’s ConEd (the New York electric utility) account via its existing online billing system. Personal Kyoto simply takes this data and creates a more intuitive consumption metric—a running 12 month average of electric use which smoothes seasonal variation—and provides a reduction goal recommended by the Kyoto Protocol.
For the New Climates project I wanted to work on a way of looking at the aggregate electric use data in a geographical way. The map above shows the average monthly electric use for Personal Kyoto users at the zip code level. The green portions of the map indicate Personal Kyoto users that are consuming less electricity than users in the redder portions of the map. It is worth noting, however, that the biggest consumers of electricity on New York still consume less than the average American household which uses 800 kWh a month. The largest monthly average on this map comes in at 720 kWh.
The electric use map is updated regularly at the Personal Kyoto site.
– Ben Engebreth
March 12, 2007 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Art, Andrea Polli, Travel, Global, Natural/Artificial, Pollution, Live Data
New work made for New Climates
Roadside Garden Socal
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Download the real-time application (stuffed archive .sit)
Mac OSX: socal.application.macosx.sit
Windows:socal.application.windows.sit
Linux: socal.application.linux.sit
Source code: roadside garden socal
Built with Processing
Roadside Garden Socal is a desktop application that downloads and visualizes daily amounts of O3 (ozone) and NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) in the atmosphere in Southern Californiain the form of a small roadside tree next to a live Southern California highway webcam.
Webcam image from the California Department of Transportation. Daily amounts of O3 and NO2 updated hourly provided by the South Coast Air Quality Management District AQMD www.aqmd.gov. NO2 air pollution is primarily caused by motor vehicles and, in some places, by energy production. Ozone (O3) is formed when other pollutants react to light.
Thanks to Kevin Durkee and the South Coast AQMD for assistance in retrieving the data.
Above is a pre-recorded version presenting data from March 12, 2007
– Andrea Polli
Roadside Garden Taipei
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Download the real-time application (stuffed archive .sit)
Mac OSX: taipei.application.macosx.sit
Windows: taipei.application.windows.sit
Linux: taipei.application.linux.sit
Source code: roadside garden taipei
Built with Processing
Roadside Garden Taipei is a desktop application that downloads and visualizes daily amounts of CO (carbon monoxide) in the atmosphere in Taipei in the form of a small roadside tree next to a live Taipei highway webcam.
Webcam image from the Traffic Engineering Office of Taipei City. Hourly EPA data formatted by Dr. Chung-Ming Liu, Director of the Global Change Research Center and Professor of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at National Taiwan University. Carbon monoxide is released by the incomplete combustion of fuels such as natural gas, charcoal, gasoline, and tobacco.
Above is a pre-recorded version presenting data from March 12, 2007
– Andrea Polli
Roadside Garden Socal and Roadside Garden Taipei, by Andrea Polli, visualize pollution in real time, conveying the immediacy of our impact on climate change. Live data readings of atmospheric conditions are translated into fluctuating tree-shapes, which “grow” next to current images of freeways in Southern California and Taipei. These two icons create an imaginary cycle of chemical emission and photosynthesis, or a dialog between artificial and natural structures of growth—urban sprawl and bifurcating branches. Roadside Garden also evokes the theme of dispersal—from the diffusion of molecules in the air, to the distribution of the artwork itself in the form of individual applications that serve as microcosmic air quality monitoring stations. Finally, since every viewer of the work will be accessing the same data stream, the project provides a sense of networked connectivity, suggesting a model through which we may begin discussing or altering our collective role in climate change.
