There have been outcries of global climate change around the world in media recently. They said cities will be drowned in the ocean in a few decades, world will come to an end by warming climate, and there will be so many impact to human life by it that we need some immediate action to prevent it. Then the outcries subsided somewhat much time after “Inconvenient Truth” came out and people didn’t seem to worry about the issue as much.

After having watched “Inconvenient Truth”, I have been wondering why the big outburst of climate change have gradually died despite the fact that there had been no news of this problem being stopped or solved. People seemed to forgot about issues that are not highlighted in media after a while, especially the problems that don’t affect them directly or immediately. I haven’t forgetten about the shock I got from watching “Inconvenient Truth”. I even thought that starting a new family would be an unwise risk due to the impacts that global warming would bring. When I tool this class, I had no doubt in mind but to do a project on something that was related to global warming. Since danger of sea level rise looked the most serious to me I decided to find out more about the issue while doing this project. After finding out that sea level rise mainly results from ice melting around the world, I decided to do research on ice melting as well.

There were steps to follow to create an art project on sea level rise and ice melting around the world. First, I had to know what sea level rise and melting of the ice were all about. Then I found dataset of sea level rise that were available online. Besides doing online research I did an interview with a scientist who specialized in this climatic issue.  I also did interviews with target audience who might be related to my project to find out how much interest they had in this issue. I did a research on other forms on sea level rise issue or on other topics to get more creative ideas for my art project. There was a chance to find other popularized forms with similar topic. I attended a scientific event at gallery that had exhibition related to climatic issue and found some art work pertaining to sea level rise. All these process helped me tremendously in creating 2 forms about sea level issue.

2 forms I chose to make for sea level rise were web-based interactive map and 3d art for museum exhibition. Web-based interactive map is a world map with sea level measuring stations that were active since 2003 until today. When the audience clicks on the location mark, that information about the station including country name, station name, ocean it’s located at, sea level data, and difference between the latest sea level data and previous year. While researching for visual form for sea level rise online, I realized that there were no easy to use form for audience to find out about actual data of sea level rise. Although there were scientific articles on the issue, I was surprised to find that there were actually no forms for general audience to find out about that data. Instead of exaggerating about the sea level rise issue in words, I felt that audience needed to know in specific what is really going on with the issue in scientific terms. Presenting the actual data might be more convincing and alluring way to make people know about the issue. This goal set in mind, I used my Flash skill to create interactive map where most recent sea level data can be shown with one click. After creating the beginning stage of the map, I realized there were other ways to make it more real to audience: inserting water movement in background and ocean sound, colorful marks according to difference of changes in sea level rise last two years, and somehow make this web-based interactive art connect to 3D space, etc.  This map needed to be easy to use and as much accessible as possible for the general audience.

3D art that I had in mind for museum was to show the immediate danger of sea level rise to general audience. I used polar bear, the most immediate victim of the melting of the ice in Antarctica, and make it relate to the city life, since melting of the ice was causing sea level rise. As ice on which polar bear is sitting on melts, fresh water from the melting ice flows down into the city area represented as NYC in this form. I tried to visually connect these two very separate regions that are in close relationship in real life despite the distance and climatic difference. Also, I wanted to show how use of electricity, generated by burning of coals, would fasten this melting of ice process, thus more quickly drowning the city in rising sea. I tried to insert this idea as immediately into the audience as possible by using electric switch that they find and use everyday; electric switch will be installed on wall for this effect as well. The lightbulb was used for the cause of melting of the ice. Turning on and off electric switch will make audience immediately realize more electricity they use, more they cause the warming of climate. The melting of ice was the most difficult task of all. Although this project is not complete yet, the problems will be solved and more new idea will be implemented in future.

The goal for these 2 forms on sea level rise were for general audience to get more interested in the topic and maybe take some action to prevent it. From the interview I had with audience, I sensed the lack of enthusiasm they had in sea level rise topic even though their countries fell in most vulnerable coastal country category to sea level rise. This lack of interest was not a surprise to me at all, since no general person talks about this topic in daily life as general topic of conversation. I thought about how to raise the level of interest among general audience about the global climatic change and how it will affect us. Not even scientist know whether sea level rise will really bring all those horrible effects that were shown in media and entertainment industry. Some scientists even say sea level change is not serious at all when looking at whole history of earth. Even from the dataset I worked with reflected that sea level sometimes declined over time. However, it is still necessary to keep informing general audience on changes in sea level because nature tends to be unpredictable sometimes. Audience has the right to know and should be interested in how the environment changes around them and how it will affect them. And every capable person should strive to make these possible.

EPA (Environmental Performance Actions) is the first project show of SEA (Social-Environmental Aesthetics) initiated by Exit Art gallery to address current environment concerns and the way artists respond to them. The show was located in the gallery underground where long narrow hallway had installed videos, visual arts, and actual plants (in courtesy of the reclamation project) that documented the performance by artists about environment issues. The target audience was general audience because of its easily comprehensible visual content and documentaries didn’t have heavy scientific data about environment issue involved that might have chased general audience away. The fact that show was about artist’s performance about environment issue rather than some mere facts about environment problems raised audience’s interest naturally. I was curious and interested too that there were actually artists who cared about the environment enough to do performance art about the issue.

Among documentaries of artists’ performances, artists tried to make audience to be part of nature through their art. There was a singing performance. There was Erica Fielder’s Bird Feeder Hat where the artist used sensory experience to make audience feel the wild animal up close around the watershed area.

The artists tried to convey how we treat the environment in daily life and some of them attached how Americans live in ignorance over the environment. There was Chris Solla’s Pile of Trash, where 11 artists wore garbage bags over them and acted as sometimes walking or sitting garbages in the shopping district, portraying America’s wasteful relationship to trash. It also observed how we look at trash and how trash looks at us. The gallery had a video showing the actual performance and the audience could see how artists as garbage bags looked while performing in San Francisco’s Union Square and what the reaction of the street walkers and shoppers was. Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates attacks the concepts of American lawn and attempts to reconcile the global food production and urbanized land use through domestic food gardening. There was also very humorous performance art called Save the Whale/The Great Pacific Ocean Rubbish Patch, where participants, represented as rubbish, ran in an organized formation to mimick the ocean currents. This performance took place on Prince of Wales Park in Wellington, New Zealand to draw audience’s attention to massive accumulated trash on ocean.

Some artist tried to convey the future consequences due to global warming. Watermark by Sarah Kavage, still ongoing in Seattle, is a performance where artist marks the future shoreline on street if 20 ft sea level rise occurs due to the melting of ice in Greenland and Antartica. There was a similar effort made in NYC waterfront by Eve S Mosher’s High Water Line, where artist marked 10 ft above sea level line over the course of 6 months.

There were artists who tried to make audience actually participate in improving the environment. In Native Flags, reforestation effort was made by artist by making participating audience to actually implant one of 12 native tree saplings alongside green line project flag in their yard and state: “I hereby reclaim this land for nature.” On the back of flag, participants write their own commitments to improve environment.

All these art showed passions of artist to make audience become aware of the environment issue and make them participate in their performances. The exhibition was well organized with videos and photographs, and sometimes real objects to show the documentaries of performance art that happened internationally. There was also a theater where the actual happenings during performance were shown and audience could sit down and enjoy watching them on big screen. Though it was a small space for such a big topic, the impact of the show was profound and very easily comprehensible. I hope though that gallery could have decorated gallery space more maybe with trees, plants, or earth to make it more about the environment. The interior decoration according to the theme of show is important in contributing to the alluring of the audience to the show. The sound of environment could be added to the show as well. Overall, the show was very clear in delivering the documentaries on environment issue around the world.

sealevelrise

audience interview

• There was an anticipation that these three audience might have had more exposure to information on sea level rise since their countries were coastal regions
• They were aware of the danger of sea level rise but they weren’t sure of what the impact is going to be on their lives.
• They weren’t very interested in the sea level rise subject. They all lived far away from the sea region so they all said their main concern was daily life of the city.
• The best way to show these audience is through media or entertainment industry.

Measurement

• Tide Gauge

• A tide gauge is a device for measuring sea level and detecting tsunamis.
• Sensors continuously record the height of the water level with respect to a height reference surface close to the geoid. Water enters the device by the bottom pipe (far end of the tube, see picture), and electronic sensors measure its height and record it to a tiny computer.
• Data are available for over 1,750 stations worldwide. At some places records cover centuries, for example in Amsterdam where data dating back to 1700 is available. When it comes to estimating the greater ocean picture, new modern tide gauges can often be improved upon by using satellite data.
• Tide gauges are used to measure tides and quantify the size of tsunamis. The measurements make it possible to derive the mean sea level. Using this method, sea level slopes up to several 0.1 m/1000 km and more have been detected.
• Tide Gauge
• Tide Gauge Installment
• Top of Tide Gauge
• Diagram of tide gauge installed underneath the ice sheet
• Acoustic Tide Gauge

• Satellite

ice flow

Storm surge from the 1938 hurricane at the Battery, New York City

Future scenario of storm surging over portions of New York City

Quotes by scientists:

“If the (polar) ice sheets really get involved, then we’re talking tens of metres of sea level — that could really start to swamp low-lying countries,”

“We’ve found the largest likely factor for sea level rise is changes in the amount of ice that covers the Earth. Three-fourths of the planet’s freshwater is stored in glaciers and ice sheets or the equivalent of about 67 meters (220 feet) of sea level,”

make powerpoint presentation

show interviews

edit scientist interview

consider what person would see when person sees the project and presentation

artist’s statement can be due on last day

talk about prototypes and forms

photographs of sea level rise

30 min of presentation

scientific visualiztion(for scientists) vs. information visualization(from raw data and for audience)

Experts and Everyone Else by C.P. Snow

data-currency of expertise  and scientists

The pilots’ senses are used only to see and hear the instruments and to coordinate his hands and feet
to operate the right buttons, pedals and levers. Within the short decade of successfully routined, automated
instrument landings humanity has thus come to risk its life in high confidence of the successful
performance of automated instruments.
It is thus proven that society has established fundamental confidence in the reliability of properly
maintained and programmed computers. The fact is that in going from here to there by some kind of
transport in 1968 the most dangerous way is by automobile. Next most dangerous is by railroad, and it is
safest to go by airplane. That is a new era condition brought about by the extraordinary degree of
reliability of computerized controls. As a consequence much more automation is about to take place and
the computers to do the myriad tasks are proliferating at an amazing and popularly unrecognized rate.

The objective of the game would be to explore for ways to make it possible for anybody and
everybody in the human family to enjoy the total earth without any human interfering with any otherhuman and without any human gaining advantage at the expense of another.

Assimilating the running of the world by computer we see quickly that we must find ways in which
humans can be induced to employ all equipment all the time, thus smoothing out the peaks and valleys and eliminating the 66% empty time and servicing 100 percent instead of only 40 percent of humanity.

Amongst other grand strategies for making the world work and taking care of everybody is the design
science revolution of providing ever more effective tools and services with ever less, real resource investment
per each unit of end performance. For instance, a communications satellite, weighing only one-quarter of a ton is now out-performing the transoceanic communication capabilities of 175 thousand tons of copper
cable.

In complete contradiction to all the war experts’ assumptions, between 1900 and today, in just
two-thirds of a century, while the world’s population has approximately doubled, we have at the same time also gone from less than 1 percent of humanity to 40 percent of all humanity enjoying a higher standard of living than was known to or was dreamed of by any monarch before the twentieth century.

Thus our confidence in the computers is progressively enhanced.

Quite the reverse. It is the astronauts superior knowledge of the
computers’ capability and his superb coordination with and reliance upon the strategems and tools of
science which win society’s spontaneous confidence and admiration.

I am quite confident that as the world game is played progressively it will disclose a myriad of
politically untried, unprecedented yet amazingly effective ways of solving hitherto unsurmountable
world-around problems. These unprecedented computer disclosures will not only be kept track of by the computer but will become “big news” items of the world’s press, and of the international news wire services. As man gets into more and more critical proximity to a full scale World War Three, due to the inherent political biases and intransigence, the people of the world will begin to say in increasing numbers, “Now that we can see a way in which this and that can be done, as indicated by the computerized World Game, we must obviously adopt the policies indicated by the computer.”

The World Game playing computer will disclose the vast overall, longtime economy of paying
whatever it costs to eliminate pollution at sources. The computer will show the overall long-run increase
profit and economic advantage to society of switching our prime moving away from expenditures of our
fossil fuel energy savings account, and bo energy income sources.

We may conclude that human society’s deliberately cultivated specialization is unnatural and
debilitating to both its group and individual welfaring and evolutionary development. We may well ask how it happened that the entire scheme of advanced education is devoted exclusively to ever narrower
specialization.

Now, biological and anthropological scientists have discovered and verified that extinction of past
biological species and human tribes always has been the consequence of overspecialization.

The foil acts as extra insulation. It reduces heat gain/loss due to radiation.

• The ice without insulation completely melted after 35.5 hours
• The ice in the cooler completely melted after 52 hours
• The ice insulated with leaves completely melted after 135 hours

1. what are the examples of impacts brought by sea level rise?
2. what experimental questions when you collect this type of data?
3. what basic scientific concepts form the basis for this research?
4. what is the process do you use to collect this type of data?
5. What techniques do you use to visualize the data?
6. What are you trying to communicate and to whom (what does it all mean?)
7. I heard you’ve been to Antarctic. how serious is melting of the ice there? and how serious is it around the world?

1)what makes them a part of this audience also, what are some of the existing assumptions about this audience, what kind of media/data experience, information sandwich is usually designed for it?

More than two-thirds of the world’s large cities are in areas vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, and millions of people are at risk of being swamped by flooding and intense storms. In all,634 million people live in the threatened coastal areas worldwide — defined as those lying at less than 33 feet above sea level. The impact of sea level rise from global warming could be catastrophic for many developing countries.

There are countries that are especially vulnerable to sea level rising. These countries are usually either countries that are islands or that are surrounded by sea. From ITP community where cultures are very diverse I chose these three audiences whose countries were perhaps immediately vulnerable to sea level change. These audiences are each from Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico. Listed are online article about impact of sea level change on each country.

Indonesia

Japan

Mexico

I had an anticipation that these three audience might have had more exposure to information on sea level rise or climatic change since their countries were one of those coastal countries where they may physically encounter the natural disasters caused by sea more than people who live in non-coastal regions.

The media/data experience and information about sea level rise might have been exposed in these forms:

• news and magazine media on global climate change
• exhibitions in museums
• movies and documentaries

2)what do they already know about your area of science and its data (what kind of facts)

They all had heard about sea level change and melting of the ice in Arctic region. They also knew that their countries were vulnerable to global climate change. They weren’t however sure of when the impact is going to happen or how much it will affect their lives. They also didn’t know about the specific data on sea level rise or melting of the ice.

3)what is the nature and level of interest in your subject (or what might it be)

They weren’t very interested in the subject. They all lived far away from the sea region so they all said their main concern was daily life of the city. They also haven’t gone to museum nor did research on the subject on their own. They all had either last heard about it when they were younger or through entertainment industry. They watched “Waterworld”, for example, because famous actor was in the movie.

4)do they think your area of research impacts their own lives? How and why? How might this be relevant to your project (why/why not)?

They all thought sea level rise will affect their lives somehow but didn’t know how. They somehow knew this because they all knew that their countries were coastal and had heard lightly about their countries getting lower into the sea.

Their vague knowledge of how the sea level rise will affect their lives might be hopefully refreshed by the physical art, photographs of impacts and visual data representation in my project and make them act on preventing severe change in climate.

5)At the salon, give us a description of your audience, and their information needs and desires.

These three audiences are from coastal countries that are said to be vulnerable to sea level rise. Three countries picked are Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico. They need to have more interest in the sea level rise subject since it will indeed personally affect their lives sooner or later. They need to find out about when the impact is going to happen and how it will specifically affect their lives. They also need to monitor the real time data on sea level rise so they can perhaps prepare their minds for upcoming changes and impacts. They also need to find out what impacts are resulted from sea level rise: impact on agriculture, disease, water usage, and so forth.
The best way to show these audience is through media or entertainment industry since they seemed to be the areas they were mostly interested in. Since they’re young audiences, it’ll be helpful to make visual representation of data as entertaining and fun as possible and informational at the same time.

Video clips of Interviews

Warning!: Please use your headphones when listening to these videos. Otherwise you won’t hear anything!

Indonesia
Interview with Amanda who is from Java in Indonesia.

Japan
Interview with Nori who is from Japan.

Mexico
Interview with Sandra who is from Mexico.