Re-calibrating the perception of glacial water and climate change through audio-visual contemporary art practice

当代艺术可以揭示哪些写在极地冰上的隐藏历史？在应对气候危机的紧迫性推动下，这项研究将冰芯实验室确定为重要的历史遗址。它认为，对这些遗址中嵌入的叙事的理解可以使当代艺术作品的创作成为可能，而与这些作品的物质接触将导致更好地理解我们与我们生活的世界的过去和现在的互动。我通过在英国南极调查局(BAS)冰芯实验室进行的研究，探索了冰盖、冰川和不断变化的冰川大气的迅速消失。气候科学家录制的访谈和口头证词也被用作开发感官、叙事和大气方法来写作和制作的基础。BAS冰芯的历史可以追溯到80万年前，它包含了过去的重要信息，包括温度和大气气体浓度的变化。(Bas.ac.uk，2019年)。冰芯是从冰盖或冰川上钻出的圆柱体；科学家使用这些冰芯来测量和预测气候大气、全球变暖和海平面上升之间的直接关系。冰芯含有压缩的古老空气的小气泡，当溶解在水中时会发出爆裂的声音。我一直在对这些压缩气泡进行音频和电影录音。极地美学包括三个整体的书面和实际工作，固体系列，液体系列和蒸汽系列。这些作品的灵感来自于我在冰岛南部的北极和南极北部的Rothero的真实和想象中的经历。除了这些，我还考察了通过当代艺术品体验的冰川水的想法如何有助于我们对时间、地点和文化记忆的理解。通过我的中心案例研究--罗尼·霍恩的水图书馆(2017)，这些想法得到了进一步的提炼。这项研究通过包括埃丝特·莱斯利(液晶)和简·班尼特在内的批判性理论家的工作来检验气候危机的概念。(班尼特，2010)班尼特关于人类和非人类的概念提醒了我，英国南极勘探局的气候科学家所做的工作的重要性。班尼特的被动、惰性或主动作用力的概念，放大了他们尚未讲述的磁性故事和未命名的极地历史。到目前为止，参观者在我的展览中的积极参与表明，这样的历史不是消失点，而是平行线出现和汇合的坐标标记点。极地美学认为，英国南极调查冰芯实验室是科学和文化数据的储存库，反映了人类对极地地区的参与和干预。作为历史信息的纽带，在气候危机加速之际，它促进了当代艺术作品的创作。这项研究对实验室的知识做出了原创性的贡献，并认为对这些艺术品的物质体验能够并鼓励人们对脆弱的冰川过去、现在和未来进行深入思考。

What hidden histories written in polar ice can contemporary art reveal? Propelled by the urgency of addressing climate crisis, the research identifies ice-core laboratories as important historical sites. It posits that an understanding of the narratives embedded in these sites can enable the production of contemporary artworks, and that an material engagement with these works will lead to a better understanding of our past and present interactions with the world we live in. I explore the rapid disappearance of ice sheets, glaciers and the changing glacial atmosphere, as experienced through research conducted at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) ice-core laboratory. Recorded interviews and oral testimony by climate scientists is also used as the basis for developing a sensory, narrative, and atmospheric approach to writing and making. Dating back 800,000 years in geological time, the BAS ice-cores contain vital information from the past, including changes in both temperature and concentration of atmospheric gases. (Bas.ac.uk, 2019). Ice cores are cylinders drilled from an ice sheet or glacier; the cores are used by scientists to measure and predict the direct correlation between the climatic atmosphere, global warming and rising sea levels. Ice cores contain small bubbles of compressed ancient air that make popping sounds when dissolved in water. I have been conducting audio and film recordings of these compressed air bubbles. Polar Aesthetics involves three integrated bodies of written and practical work, Solid Series, Liquid Series and Vapour Series. These works are informed by my real and imagined experience of the Arctic in southern Iceland, and Rothero in northern Antarctica. Alongside these, I examine how ideas of glacial water, as experienced through contemporary artworks, contribute to our understanding of time, place and cultural memory. These ideas are further refined through my central case study, Roni Horn's Library of Water (2017). The research examines notions of climate crisis through the work of critical theorists including Esther Leslie (liquid crystals) and Jane Bennett's idea of 'vibrancy of matter', or the 'political ecology of things'. (Bennett, 2010) Bennett's notion of the human and non-human has alerted me to the magnitude of the work conducted by the climate scientists at the British Antarctic Survey. Bennett's idea of passive, inert or active forces, amplifies the magnetic stories and unnamed polar history they are yet to tell. The active participation of visitors during my exhibitions to date suggest that such histories are not vanishing points, but co-ordinates marking points where parallel lines emerge and converge. Polar Aesthetics identifies the British Antarctic Survey ice-core laboratory as a repository of scientific and cultural data, that reflects mankind's engagement with, and intervention in, the polar regions. As a nexus of historical information, it facilitates the production of contemporary artworks at a time of accelerating climate crisis. The research makes an original contribution to knowledges of the laboratory and argues that a material experience of these artworks enables and encourage a deep consideration the fragile glacial past, present and future.