To Extremes: Public Art in a Changing World
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Project Overview
To Extremes was an invitational competition exploring the relationship of extreme events to climate change. An ideas competition was based on the authoritative 2011 scientific report, the Special Report on Extreme Events produced by the international Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. . Christina Lanzl was invited by science journalist and Knight Science Journalism Fellow Eli Kintisch during his year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop the project. To Extremes competition winner Sam Jury presented her video installation at the Cambridge Science Festival 2012. Her video projection features commissioned films that explore what she calls "the philosophical and psychological effect of climate extremes." Through an algorithm that will respond in real-time to extreme weather data, the installation is intended to visualize climatic events as they occur. The To Extremes concepts ranged from sculpture to light, video, sound and mural installations. The proposals evolved around nine key concepts from the Extreme Events report: heat, fire, floods, wind, drought, poverty, migration, risk, and warning. An exhibition of the nine best proposals took place at MIT's Maseeh Hall in April 2012, selected by a distinguished jury from 50 proposals developed by 50 artists invited to participate in the competition. 2011 Special Report on Extreme Events The 2011 Special Report on Extreme Events was the product of two years of work by 220 experts in the physical, environmental and social sciences. It reports how a warming planet will encounter new extremes of weather and climate and the required efforts to prepare and adapt to them. Some of the most important aspects of the changing global climate are trends in extremes. A warmer planet will likely mean more heat waves and droughts, stronger hurricanes, and other trends in floods and other disasters. Preparing and adapting to these new extremes presents myriad challenges to all sectors of civil society, from emergency management to infrastructure to public health. This emerging reality raises new questions about the shifting nature of security and both environmental as well as economic risk, and the changing identity of our planet as a haven for life. |
Exhibiting Artists
Sam Jury, Competition Winner Dan Borelli, Honorable Mention Andrea Frank Kalman Gacs Sam Jacobson, Irina Chernyakova and Nicole Goehring Bradford Johnson Marcus Owens and Jack Becker Evelyn Rydz Gina Siepel Jury Dina Deitsch, Curator, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Janet Echelman, Artist, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow Philip J. Hilts, Director, Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, former New York Times Reporter Eric Höweler, Architect, Harvard School of Design Louisa McCall, Artists in Context, Cambridge Larry Pratt, Artist and Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Pablo Suarez, Geographer, Boston University and Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre Zenovia Toloudi, Architect and Research Affiliate, Art, Culture + Technology Program at MIT Co-Sponsors Artists in Context Cambridge Science Festival Harvard University Graduate School of Design Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum of Science Boston Urban Arts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design |