Welcome to 90ºS
October 11th, 2007 andrea Posted in news | 1 Comment »
Welcome to 90degreessouth.org, the weblog for the 90ºS project!
On November 30, 2007, I will leave New York City to spend seven weeks at McMurdo Station in Antarctica work with scientists gathering and modeling environmental data, particularly scientists in the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research Project and data from Automatic Weather Stations. This project aims to communicate both the aesthetic beauty of Antarctica and the scientific importance of Antarctica to the global climate.
As an artist who works with weather and climate data highlighting climate change issues, traveling to Antarctica and working alongside global climate and weather experts will be an exciting opportunity to explore art and science collaboration. Although this work could be done at any time, it is especially appropriate that it be done during the International Polar Year because the art work relates directly the polar region’s impact on global climate.
I plan to experiment with data compiled by several scientist teams and determine how best to use it in a sound and visual installation. I will record video and audio interviews with the scientists and capture video, sound and digital images of the environment and will include selections of that work here.  Through talking to many people who have visited there, I’ve learned that in Antarctica, one should ‘expect the unexpected’ so I expect that this blog will contain documentation of some unusual and unexpected experiences!
December 9th, 2007 at 10:44 am
All the postings and recordings are absolutely fascinating. At first I wasn’t sure why.
But part of it seems to be that this massive piece of ice and land usually lies so completely outside the mental picture many of us have of the world. It does have its little mental niche – i.e., the cold place with the penguins where mostly men go to plant flags and get there picture taken. But mostly it is absent from our cosmologies. Part of it is its lack of visibility on the maps we grow up seeing as kids. Part of it might be that, as we mentally scan and rescan the world, we consign Antarctica to our list of the “not much happening and not many people there so there is nothing to worry about†places. In a world we perceive as dangerous, it is almost certainly comforting to have a place to render invisible and harmless. And if we picture a bunch of cute dancing penguins there, all the better.
But like most of compartmentalizing and rendering invisible that we do, we really lose in the process. Here is this rich and complex and diverse place and it is a complete mystery to so many people who should know better. A place that can teach us much about biodiversity and our geological history. A place with so many sensory experiences to be had, to be treasured, to be recorded.
And yet here I am, a middle aged man, thinking about it for the very first time in my life.
This is really fun. And profound.