Science is not all about facts. This much I knew before meeting my partners from the scientific community. But now, having met with my new colleagues I’m much more aware of the many affinities between research-based contemporary sonic art and scientific practice.
I think that one of the best uses of arts money would be to have resident artists in as many University science departments as possible, beginning of course with myself. I say his having just gained an appreciation of the work carried out by the Cryosphere and Climate Change Group, based in the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen. I can only imagine the joys of working as a resident artist, in any medium, with people who recreate or even reimagine ancient environmental histories through investigations into palaeo-environmental reconstruction, palaeoclimate and palaeoglaciology, glacial tectonics and long-term landscape evolution.
The purpose of my visit was to meet at last with my scientific partners and to establish which kinds of sonification models might be feasible, which of my ideas would honour the science in other words. Everything depends on the quality of the historical monitoring records and it turns out that records are in very good shape for some climatological phenomena, particularly in England. I can for example map rising tones to CO2 accumulations over time, starting pre-industrially, and because of this can present a reasonable prediction looking forward to 2050 or 2100. I should say that ‘looking forward’ isn’t the best choice of words – I’m constantly shocked by the fact that unless we clean up our act none of these predictions look good for our children and grandchildren.
Much harder is establishing a good set of historical records for diminishing ice sheet mass or area, which was my original idea. After much headscratching someone remembered that the Aletsch Glacier in the Bernese Alps has been historically very well monitored and provides excellent data. According to one online source the glacier is experiencing dramatic ablation, shrinking by up to 50 metres in length each year and retreating significantly at the edges. Again my enthusiasm around this research is tempered by an unease at making creative work around such disturbing environmental trends.
What I’ve also learned is the fact that various cycles, what we might call unforced or seasonal cycles, occur within the rise and fall of these anthropogenically forced climate change phenomena. With global temperature for example, plotted on an x/y axis, we find a rising trend over time, with a drastic increase in rate over the last two decades. But within this there are small sine waves, oscillations analogous to the seasonal variations. Falling glacier mass or other phenomena will have show periodic or quasi-periodic oscillations. Mapped to frequency these oscillations within a rising or falling trend will offer the listener a much more interesting sonic model, some noise in an otherwise smooth signal.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, I received a very warm response as well as excellent advice with respect to making the work accessible, how we might add value to an exhibition by presenting the work as a catalyst or forum that invites people to share values around climate change issues.
