DAT/ACT brings together a collection of artworks responding to climate change, the defining crisis of our time. Perhaps a contraction at first glance, the title is open to interpretation and visitors may detect a variety of possibilities in both meaning and pronunciation. Should it say “DATA”? Is the data incomplete? Does it contain an imperative, a command to “act”? Or does it refer to a written law, as in an Act of Parliament? Should it rhyme with “tact”? Is it an abbreviation of “ACTION”? Does it indicate something performative? Does the “/” mean that it is an either/or statement? Should we choose one or the other?

Many of the works use data as material through visualisation and sonification, the process of presenting data and information through graphical means and non-speech sounds respectively. These techniques can serve a didactic purpose by conveying the science and data behind climate change. But their use in an artistic context can progress beyond merely being visual and auditory display or a formalist exercise. How the data is communicated via the audio and the visuals becomes inseparable from the aesthetic concerns of the sound and the moving image.

What is required in comprehending the title and the works in the exhibition is not necessarily any missing “data” – the evidence behind climate change is overwhelmingly clear – but perhaps a response on the part of both the artist and the viewer/listener in order to supplement the context conveyed. This response or “act” is not merely a direct call to action which leads to practical outcomes – the works presented are not only a way of raising awareness of a worthy cause, nor simply a form of agitprop or activism. After all, exhibiting works on the subject of climate change in a gallery setting could quite rightly be considered as preaching to the converted at best, cynically riding on a wave of popular sentiment, or worse. Rather, what is necessary is a consideration of how artists can engage with the topic of climate change, and how the viewer/listener can in turn engage with such artworks. The act required becomes a form of interpretation or reflection, or the formation of subjectivity, in experiencing the association of sensory affect with the context of climate data and its real-world implications.

Questions to consider could include the following:
How do you enjoy a piece of music when its upward trajectory is thanks to global warming?
How pleasing to the eye can an image showing carbon emissions increase be?
How apparent should the data be in audio and visual patterns generated by climate data?
How amusing should a satirical take on climate change be?
Should the success of this exhibition be assessed in terms of behavioural changes in the visitors to the gallery or the wider public? (No)
Should you make an effort to reduce your carbon footprint after visiting this exhibition? (Yes)

DAT/ACT asks visitors to consider the possibilities of “data art for climate action,” its limits and how to exceed them.

The Weep of Trees

Band of Weeds (Kalle Hamm, Olli Aarni, Lauri Ainala and Hermanni Keko)
2021

Generative webpage

http://www.hermannikeko.net/kasvihyytialatone

Artist Statement

THE WEEP OF TREES IN KALEVALA

The Weep of Trees is an art project by Band of Weeds dealing with stress reaction oftrees. It is based on the poem called The Weep of a Birch Tree in the Kalevala. Thesage Väinämöinen listens to the birch’s complaint about how people treat it badly. At theend of the poem, Väinämöinen fells the birch and makes a new kantele (a traditionalFinnish string instrument) out of it for himself.

Researcher Matthew Hall uses the poem The Weep of a Birch Tree as one example of the animistic plant relationship of Finns in the pre-Christian period, in which plants areunderstood as active subjects and persons. Actually, the poem was written by Lönnrothimself, the collector and editor of the Kalevala. He wrote the article sharing his ownpersonal opinion on how contemporaries treated the forest and its trees, and published itin the newspaper 1850’s.

According to him, the Finns were the enemies of the forest, because the boys already hitthe trees with their axes for fun. Workers, travellers, and shepherds ignited forest firesthrough their carelessness. Shingles and tinders were torn so that the tops of the treeswere left to rot and destroy new vegetation. By absurd rinsing, the forests weredestroyed.

THE WEEP OF TREES BY THE BAND OF WEEDS

The Weep of Trees is a modern version of The Weep of a Birch Tree. Unlike Lönnrot’s version, where Väinämöinen has to fell a birch to make a kantele, in The Weep of Trees, the tree does not have to be felled to make it a musical instrument. With the help of current technology, the reactions of trees, for example stress, can be measured with various devices. These measurements can be converted into audible sounds in the human ear.

The Weep of Trees utilizes the monitoring data of the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station on the stress reactions of living trees for felling the proximate trees. The emission of VOC particles in trees before and after thinning have been used in the work. Additionally, stress clicks on tree trunks, variations in sap flows and the jarring pecking of three-toed woodpecker are sonified and used in the artwork.

Artist Biography

Band of Weeds is a sound collective, which was founded in 2015. At first, it was only a conceptual band created by Kalle Hamm and Dzamil Kamanger, and existed only on a paper. It became a real band, which releases LPs and gives live concerts, in 2017. The first album – Other-Than-Human – was released in autumn 2017, and the EP Waiting for the Extinction :-( in the spring 2019. The current members of the band are now Olli Aarni, Lauri Ainala, Kalle Hamm and Hermanni Keko featuring different plants depending on the project.

Carbon Reveries 1958 - 2021

Artist Statement

“Carbon Reveries” is a reverie of ink, instilled in bamboo to offer an interactive and immersive respite from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Scientists first started measuring carbon dioxide levels from modern industrialisation which began in 1958. The annual rate increased rapidly and they named the rising curve as the Keeling Curve. “Carbon Reveries 1958” and “2021” represents both years of carbon emission data in comparing the ink fading time. The installation empowers visitors to experience, and rethink, our relationship with nature and the possibility of human-nature coexistence in the future.

Breezing through the bamboo grove, ink ebbs and flows according to thermodynamic changes. Human touch defines the changing scenery, symbolising the cause and effect of human activities on our environment, as if witnessing the dynamic condition of Mother Earth.

*The Keeling Curve is a graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day. Keeling's measurements showed the first significant evidence of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere.

Bamboo Annals – Reveries

h0nh1m (Chris Cheung)
2022

Multi-media installation

Thermochromic ink, stainless steel bamboo
101x101x12 cm

Artist Statement

The art installation makes a statement about electricity consumption producing carbon emissions. The cycling time of the work is 10 mins, electricity consumption is 240Wh, and it produces 168kg of CO2. It is about 161 days worth of human exhalation.

Artist Biography

Chris Cheung Hon Him (aka h0nh1m; b.1983) is best known for installation art and audiovisual performance, whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, image and creative technology in new media. h0nh1m’s reverence for Eastern and Western philosophy are central to his oeuvre, which blends traditional ideology and futuristic imagination to create immersive soundscape, generative art and data art.

The RadianceScape project he initiated in 2014 has garnered critical acclaim and was featured in Ars Electronica, FILE Festival, EMAF and other festivals. The live performance toured Sónar Festival and WRO Art Biennale in 2017. The project won ZKM – Giga Hertz Awards in 2020. And his calligraphy and ink installation (No Longer Write – Mochiji / InkFlux) are collected in Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts and UOB Art collection respectively. Lately, InkFlux was selected in 24th Japan Media Arts Festival.

h0nh1m is always eager to explore new mediums and look for aesthetics in technological intervention. He established the artist collective, XCEPT and XCEED in 2008. The collectives’ works are showcased worldwide and have won prestigious international awards in the Reddot, TDC, Frame, A’ Design, Golden Pin, GDC 11, Design for Asia awards, Lumen Prize and New York Art Director Club Young Guns 11. He received the Young Artist Award from HKADC and the Young Design Talent Awards from HKDC in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

In 2014, he was appointed as the Curator and Artistic Consultant of the 1st HK-SZ Design Biennale and has been invited as guest speaker in multiple global events including Christie’s Art and Tech Summit, Eyeo Festival and Business of Design Week. His dedication to cultivating art, tech and future living in the local community has inspired him to set up XPLOR lab and FutureTense platform.

Selected Work: http://h0nh1m.com
Immersive-Tech Studio (Founder & Creative Director): http://xcept.hk
New Media Art Group (Founder & Artistic Director): http://xceed.hk
Innovation Lab (Entrepreneur): http://xplor.hk/
Media Art Platform (Cultivator): http://futuretense.hk/

Waiting for Da Yu – Zhengzhou Precipitation Measurement

Jung-Hua Liu
2021

Generative webpage

https://decisive-awesome-soap.glitch.me

Artist Statement

This artwork is created based on archaeology, Chinese myth, and the GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) Early Precipitation L3 1 day 0.1-degree x 0.1 degree (GPM_3IMERGDE) from NASA. The dataset contains research-quality gridded global multi-satellite precipitation estimates with quasi-Lagrangian time interpolation, gauge data, and climatological adjustment. From this kind of data, this work visualizes the history precipitation data of Zhengzhou, where the God of Water - Da Yu, worked on the flood. The artwork shows rainfall measurement of 68 coordinates from January 1, 2016, to July 24, 2021. The rainfall numbers are transformed to rotating color cubes to animate it from the stellar sky to channels to emphasize the climate changes in 5 years.

Artist Biography

Jung-Hua Liu obtained his Ph.D. in Fine Art at the University of Leeds, UK. He is an assistant professor at National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.

The Torchbearer's Cave (1.0)

Lukasz Mirocha
2022

Interactive audiovisual installation

Artist Statement

The Torchbearer’s Cave (1.0) addresses the challenges in communicating one of the key indicators of the current climate crisis - the rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) level. The artwork benefits from a synergy of visualisation affordances of interactive 3D graphics and digital spherical photography. Thanks to an intuitive trackball input device the audience members control a virtual light cone that based on preprogrammed scientific data briefly renders visible CO2 particles in several urban landmarks from around the world. As the viewer is operating the "torch" the number of CO2 is gradually rising to visualise the difference in particles atmospheric concentration from 1744 estimates to 2020 measurements (scaled). In this manner the scientific fact that normally stays hidden from our senses and thus is somehow difficult to comprehend, becomes readily visible. We hope that it might make the audience more aware of the accelerating pace of CO2 levels measured since the dawn of the Industrial Era to present day and of its consequences for current and future generations.

Artist Biography

Dr. Lukasz Mirocha is a new media and creative software theoretician/practitioner working with immersive and real-time 3D media. He holds a PhD in Creative Media from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong and is currently a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, examining emerging real-time media design techniques for filmmaking and AI training. Engaged in new media/digital technology research for almost a decade, he has published on new media, digital aesthetics and digital design and exhibited artworks internationally. More on: https://lukaszmirocha.com

Industrial Average Campfire

Morgan Jenks
2020/2021

Generative audiovisual work

Artist Statement

Since pre-historical time, humans have burned wood. Fire is a fundamental technology that has protected and provided power to people. Perhaps today, Capital holds a similarly important role as the bastion of society. Money converts into the power to set things into action and to create the conditions of human habitats. As wealth represents power and safety, we may feel a transfixion similar to watching a campfire when observing the movements of financial markets.

Culture has in many ways turned in upon itself. Value is generated from the trust in human capability and technological progress, growing along with Moore's law. However, as certainly as both our biology and our digital infrastructures are physical things, there is a metabolic exchange needed for their continued functioning.

Artist Biography

Morgan Jenks is an audiovisual artist working with game engines, DJ software, and web development. He holds an MFA in Visualization from Texas A&M University. His work dealing with technologically conditioned life, simultaneously estranged from nature and encapsulated within it, has been shown at the International Computer Music Conference, the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia, and the Telfair Art Museum in Savannah, Georgia.

The Natural Lottery

Duncan Geere and Miriam Quick
2021

Audio / Podcast

18'02"

Artist Statement

Every spring since 1916, the residents of Nenana, Alaska, have placed a tripod on the frozen Tanana river and placed bets on when the ice will melt. The measurement method has stayed the same over a century, making the competition records a valuable source of data for climatologists studying how the planet is changing.

The Natural Lottery turns this climate data into a techno track. The higher the pitch of the chords in the track, the earlier the ice melted that year. These chords go up and down in pitch, but on the whole they get higher as the music progresses, showing the ice melting earlier and earlier as climate change takes hold.

During the winter, the aurora borealis swirls through the skies of Alaska and its strength rises and falls in eleven-year sunspot cycles. These are sonified as an ethereal shimmer in the background - the louder the sound, the more sunspots seen in a given month.

Finally there’s CO2. In the background of the track, faint at first and louder and louder over time, you’ll hear a siren. The pitch of the siren represents carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, measured by the observatory at Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

Artist Biography

Duncan Geere is an information designer based in Helsingborg, Sweden, interested in climate and the environment. He works to communicate complex, nuanced information to a wider audience for clients like Information is Beautiful, the Gates Foundation, and Project Drawdown. He currently works part-time for the climate charity Possible, and he's also a generative artist and musician.

Miriam Quick is a data journalist, researcher and author who explores novel ways of communicating data. She has written data stories for the BBC, worked as a researcher for Information is Beautiful and the New York Times and co-created artworks that represent data through images, sculpture and sound. Her first book, I am a book. I am a portal to the universe., co-authored with Stefanie Posavec, was published in September 2020. 

76

Enrico Dorigatti
2021

Video

3'56"

Artist Statement

Based on actual data registered by NOAA and published by NASA, 76 offers an artistic representation, through audiovisualisation, of the anomalies related to the Earth temperature in the timespan ranging from 1940 to 2016. Accordingly to NASA, temperature anomaly can be described as the variance of this data from its long-term average (i.e. how warmer or colder). In 76, these data are used to drive images and sounds accordingly. On the one side, a visual representation of Earth gets covered in grey as temperature rises—recalling the ashes left by a fire. At the same time, two labels show the year taken into account—each corresponding to 3”—and the temperature data. Audio, on the other side, is based on three well-known speeches in defence of the climate (Obama, DiCaprio, Thunberg), altered through time by mapping audio effects parameters to the data. While they represent the millions of people fighting for climate justice, they also show how chaotically the overall global response to this emergency is.

Artist Biography

Enrico Dorigatti is a sound designer and sound artist based in Italy. He holds a BA and an MA in electronic music (with specialisation, respectively, in DSP and sound design) and, during his studies, he attended masterclasses held by, amongst the others, Daniel Teruggi, James O’Callaghan, Barry Truax. He is the developer of URALi, a library for real-time audio synthesis in Unity. He has been an artist in residence for Art Stays 2021 (SLO), and his works have been presented on national and international occasions. Interested in multimedia, interactivity and technology, he is currently a PhD student in the School of Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth, investigating the environmental potential of circuit bending through sound art.

Anthropocene In C Major

Jamie Perera
2020

Audiovisual work

43'00"

Artist Statement

‘Anthropocene In C Major’ is an immersive experience of human impact on earth, felt through an exhibition that turns data into sound.

From 12,000 years ago to the present, participants will hear breakthroughs like the invention of the wheel and the Industrial Revolution, but also data trends that show the exploitation of people and the planet. At what now seems like a breaking point for our species, what can we learn from listening to the past, and what meaning can this bring to our present? Anthropocene In C Major provokes a response to climate change for a species paralysed by its own extractive structures. It invites us to confront and understand our own ecological and systemic grief, through the form of sonification, and within the scale of our modern existence on Earth.

Artist Biography

Jamie Perera uses sound to deconstruct objects in ways that create provoking experiences for listeners. His work explores radical deconstruction, re-imagining and reclamation, whilst challenging the conventions between music, sound and data.

He is the first artist to sonify the Holocene with the score "Anthropocene In C Major", now touring internationally, with excerpt "Oil, Coal & Gas for 3 Cellos" commissioned by the Serpentine's General Ecology Project. Other notable work includes sonifying twitter with intersectional voices for the FT's COP26 Global Gallery, making music from mathematical proofs with mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy, representing deaths from Coronavirus in the UK in a twenty four day performance, and using sound to show differences in conscious state with neuroscientist Anil Seth.

His passion is in challenging the conventions between music, sound and societal issues, whilst still making accessible work, and encouraging ‘happy accidents’ in interactions and creation.

AtmosActions

Hiromi Okumura, Valerie Williams, Jenn Kirby, Thomas B Jobson and Joseph Vaughan
2021

Generative audiovisual work

Artist Statement

Atmospheric Interactions is a real-time audiovisual installation which uses meteorological data a weather station is a collection of meteorological instruments mounted to a 10-meter tower atop the PACCAR building at Washington State University in Pullman, WA (Laboratory for Atmospheric Research). Measurements include temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric pressure, shortwave radiation, and longwave radiation. Three artists worked with two atmospheric scientists to realize the project. The weather data is visualized and sonified in real-time.

The weather data drives what you will be seeing and hearing.
Wind speed, wind direction, and air temperature are indicated by the speed and direction, and color of the birds. The swirl that interrupts and distorts the video is moved by changes in the data from radiation waves, air pressure, and relative humidity. As the wind speed increases you will hear more wind. As there is more rainfall, you will hear more rain. The music tempo is affected by the wind speed and air temperature. The air temperature, atmospheric pressure, net shortwave radiation, and net longwave radiation all depict the frequencies, timbre, and tempo of the notes that you hear.

The installation explores new ways of conveying weather information to people beyond the typical audience for such data through computer-mediated art. In this project, meteorological data is rendered as colors, moving shapes, and sounds. Our project seeks to reconnect people with their local weather as they live their lives indoors, and support their engagement with climate change, the most important story of our time.

Artist Biography

Hiromi Okumura is a visual and performance artist, who believes in the power of Art and Science. Hiromi teaches at School of Visual Arts, Virginia Tech

Valerie Williams is a choreographer, dancer, and director who believes technology should serve people. Working with musicians, composers, designers and artists, she creates interactive environments that respond to dancers’ movements.

Dr. Jenn Kirby is a composer, performer, lecturer and music technologist. Her output includes contemporary instrumental composition, electroacoustic music, live electronics and sound art. Jenn is a Lecturer in Electronic Music and Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Dr. Thomas B Jobson is a Professor at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, Washington State University.

Dr. Joseph Vaughan is a Research Associate Professor, Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Washington State University.

A Bitter-Sweet Reminder 隱韻

Andy Schaub
2019

Installation

Artist Statement

“A Bitter-Sweet Reminder” «隱韻» is a sound installation made up of a simple music box gently playing a familiar lullaby inside a transparent cabinet. The live sound is manipulated by a program that uses the wind datasets from the severe Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 in an algorithm that destroys the melody. Representing both home and safety, the music box plays a Brahms classic that is broken apart into pieces based on the increasingly violent winds. As the melody is dramatically affected by the storm data, sound becomes an alternative way to present natural force and danger.

Artist Biography

Andy Schaub, originally from Switzerland, is a Final-Year Creative Media student who moved to Asia due to his interest in Chinese culture and language. With a passion for sound design and experimental music, Andy likes to combine different media to sonically and visually express the viewpoint of a stranger living and experiencing life on the other side of the earth.

Chikyuchi

Vincent Ruijters and RAY LC, with Kasin Fong
2021

Installation

https://raylc.org/chairbots/mobile.html

Artist Statement

People often have emotionally ingrained perspectives when it comes to climate action, making it difficult to argue against climate change denial using only objective measures like data and policy. Interactive games, however, engage audiences on a subconscious level, working to promote causes that align with the player’s innate motivations. Instead of argumentation and data, we created a game exhibit that promotes the values that align with pro-climate action without explicitly persuading for climate action. We designed Chikyuchi based on the purpose of caring for a nonhuman entity that represents nature, engaging antagonistic viewpoints like climate change denial indirectly. The game uses the guise of a Tamagotchi to nudge audiences to pro-climate actions without policy-based arguments. Audiences can understand the exhibited game as communicating care-taking in environmental contexts as opposed to an intervention in resource depletion, interacting with the interactive instrument on a human purpose level as opposed to debating about resource and policy.

Artist Biography

Vincent Ruijters, PhD. Born 1988, The Netherlands. Based in Tokyo. Ruijters is an artist concerned with emotion and human relations in the context of contemporaneity. For this project Ruijters contemplates the relation of the contemporary human towards nature. PhD in Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. Solo exhibition (selected) 'Breathing IN/EX-terior' (Komagome SOKO gallery, Tokyo); Group exhibition (selected) ‘Radical Observers’ (Akibatamabi gallery, 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo). Curation: ‘To defeat the purpose: guerilla tactics in Latin American art’ (Aoyama Meguro Gallery, Tokyo). Awards: Japanese Gov. Scholarship (MEXT), Prins Bernhard Culture Fund Scholarship.

RAY LC applies technology and psychology to build interactive experiences that uplift vulnerable populations and empower empathetic communication, from the multidisciplinary perspectives of neuroscience, installation art, social good, and storytelling. His notable exhibitions include BankArt, 1_Wall, Process Space LMCC, New York Hall of Science, Saari Residency, Kiyoshi Saito Museum, Elektra Montreal, ArtLab Lahore, Ars Electronica Linz, NeON Digital Arts Festival, New Museum, CICA Museum, NYC Documentary Film Festival, Burning Man, NeurIPS, Deconstrukt, Elektron Tallinn, Floating Projects, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Osage Gallery.

Specimen Tree Series (No. 1–6)

Peggy Chan
2017

Installation

Cyanotype, sunlight, time, film, pins, cement, copper, wax.
14x24, 23x31, 20x33, 21x38, 17x18, 14x28 cm

Artist Statement

During research into Macao’s ecological history, she came across a multitude of reports and studies that, according to Chan, was an experience akin to watching the evolution of an artificial island. Due to land reclamation and urban development in the area, the mangrove forest, which serves as the only natural source of water purification in Macao, is becoming extinct. Chan visited these wetlands and protected areas and observed the fraught juxtaposition between city development and ecological protection. The area, which she once considered a place of beauty, is now surrounded by casinos, hotels and malls.

When I was small, my impression for Coloane and Taipa were a place for picnic. Times flies, now it has become a stone wall city. It is surround by luxury casinos, hotels and malls. If you did not pay close attention to the surrounding area, you would probably miss that not far away, there is an enclosed area which is right by the construction area. It is the Cotai City Ecology Protected Area. Though the mural that I draw on the enclosing wall, I am imaging what kind of creatures would live inside the protected area?

Artist Biography

Chan received her Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. Her works usually originate from her everyday experience and imagination, attempting to explore the triangular relationship between the individual, the city and nature. Cyanotype, a traditional photographic printing process, has been Chan's favourite medium in her recent works. Highly relied on sunlight and time in the creation process, her cyanotype works evoke the uncertainty of nature, signifying how our lives flow along with the ever-changing environment.

Chan’s works have been shown throughout Asia, most notably in Hundred Specie, Macao Museum of Arts (2017), Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale, Mokpo, Korea (2018), The 2nd CAFAM Future Exhibition: Observer- Creator, The reality representation of Chinese Young Art, CAFA Art museum, Beijing (2015), Hong Kong Female Artists Exhibition, St. Petersburg State University, Russia (2018) and Sparkle! After One Hundred, Oil Street Art Space, Hong Kong (2015). Her works have been selected by Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2020 , CAFAM Future & FUNDAÇÃO ORIENTE Art Award. CHAN is the funder and Director of the non-profit organization‘Art Together’ which promote local visual arts through a wide-ranging activities focusing on public and community art.

Waiting for the Extinction :-(

Band of Weeds (Kalle Hamm, Olli Aarni, Lauri Ainala and Hermanni Keko)
2019

Audiovisual work

18'50"

Artist Statement

Waiting for the Extinction :-( is the second release by the Band of Weeds, published 2019. It is dealing with global warming through two arctic plants. A climate change and other human activities might cause a large scale extinction on the planet. The film presents two species, which are growing in Finland and are endangered due the global warming: Siberian primrose (Primula nutans) and glacier buttercup (Ranunculus glacialis).

The Siberian primrose is a species covered by EU directive and is endangered and fully protected in Finland and Sweden. Many of its habitats have disappeared due to eutrophication of the water, the end of coastal grazing and the spread of strong competitors.

The glacier buttercup is the world’s northernmost flowering vascular plant. If mountain and Arctic glaciers melt, the glacier buttercup will no longer be able to retreat to higher or more northerly habitats. This is particularly obvious for species living in the mountains and fells. Suitable habitats for them will simply disappear.

The Band of Weeds uses microvolt sensors to record changes in the magnetic fields of plants and then produces musical works from the collected biodata. All of the sounds on the film were produced from biodata recorded from the Siberian primrose and glacier buttercup) in the plants’ natural habitat in Norway at Trollholmsund, Mugnetinden and the Øksfjordjøkelen glacier.

Artist Biography

Band of Weeds is a sound collective, which was founded in 2015. At first, it was only a conceptual band created by Kalle Hamm and Dzamil Kamanger, and existed only on a paper. It became a real band, which releases LPs and gives live concerts, in 2017. The first album – Other-Than-Human – was released in autumn 2017, and the EP Waiting for the Extinction :-( in the spring 2019. The current members of the band are now Olli Aarni, Lauri Ainala, Kalle Hamm and Hermanni Keko featuring different plants depending on the project.

你快樂不等於我快樂
You’re happy, I’m unhappy

Peggy Chan
2017

Installation

Wood, plastic grass, light and mirror

Artist Statement

Walking along the countryside, there are full of the Central Amerial “Sisal”, family of the Agave.
Their leaves are straight, scatter along the plant with thorn, pretending they are the sticking out sword.
If you walk closer, you would be surprise to see these leave where engraved with different inscription.
Some of them read:-
XX was here!
XX successful interview!
XX love you forever!
If I am the “Sisal”, I would draw my sword and mark them on your skin.

Artist Biography

Chan received her Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. Her works usually originate from her everyday experience and imagination, attempting to explore the triangular relationship between the individual, the city and nature. Cyanotype, a traditional photographic printing process, has been Chan's favourite medium in her recent works. Highly relied on sunlight and time in the creation process, her cyanotype works evoke the uncertainty of nature, signifying how our lives flow along with the ever-changing environment.

Chan’s works have been shown throughout Asia, most notably in Hundred Specie, Macao Museum of Arts (2017), Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale, Mokpo, Korea (2018), The 2nd CAFAM Future Exhibition: Observer- Creator, The reality representation of Chinese Young Art, CAFA Art museum, Beijing (2015), Hong Kong Female Artists Exhibition, St. Petersburg State University, Russia (2018) and Sparkle! After One Hundred, Oil Street Art Space, Hong Kong (2015). Her works have been selected by Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2020 , CAFAM Future & FUNDAÇÃO ORIENTE Art Award. CHAN is the funder and Director of the non-profit organization‘Art Together’ which promote local visual arts through a wide-ranging activities focusing on public and community art.

Glacier 冰川

Natalie Lo Lai Lai
2016

Video

Cantonese with Chinese & English Subtitles
17'07"

Artist Statement

Glaciers continue to melt and run into crystal clear rivers. Glaciers can also be magically transformed into a kind of comfort food: an edible glacier, which consoles those who are angry or depressed. No wonder people are obsessed with it.

Artist Biography

Lo Lai Lai Natalie is based in Hong Kong. She received her Bachelor of Art (Fine Arts) and Master of Fine Arts from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lai Lai is a former travel journalist. She is interested in the development and the construction of nature. She is a learner at the collective organic farm Sangwoodgoon (Hong Kong) , where she seeks alternatives and autonomy as an artist and Hong-Konger. Lai Lai finds her interests in food, farming, fermentation, slow-driving, surveillance, and meditation. Her artworks are mostly moving images, photography, mixed media and installation. Her work is collected by the Sigg Collection and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (US).

Drizzle

RAY LC, Zijing Song and Yating Sun
2021

Prints / Magazine

Online preview

Artist Statement

Climate change is difficult to grasp due to the remote nature of its action compared to immediate timeframes and surroundings, so arguments and statistics about its occurrence can fall on deaf ears, especially for science skeptics and climate change deniers, who interpret such persuasive strategies of political rhetoric. True change of people’s opinions and habits requires not debates and data, but rather personal stories that align the viewer’s own objectives with those of climate action. To show the consequences of climate change in data form that is palatable to climate change skeptics, we adapt a narrative strategy to show the data of climate change, creating a covert visual narrative in manga form showing both the ideals espoused by climate action and the climate change data in a visual narrative framework. These comic stories are presented for particular goals of climate action, such as individual responsibility, long-term vision, and collective conservation strategies, utilizing design fiction to narratively engage antagonistic viewpoints. To encourage audience involvement the full spread of the comic is presented on the wall of the gallery to allow visitors to read and share with others, immerse each other in the data it presents, and visually engage with the personal virtues that align with climate action without utilizing overt forms of argumentation and policy discussion.

Artist Biography

RAY LC applies technology and psychology to build interactive experiences that uplift vulnerable populations and empower empathetic communication, from the multidisciplinary perspectives of neuroscience, installation art, social good, and storytelling. His notable exhibitions include BankArt, 1_Wall, Process Space LMCC, New York Hall of Science, Saari Residency, Kiyoshi Saito Museum, Elektra Montreal, ArtLab Lahore, Ars Electronica Linz, NeON Digital Arts Festival, New Museum, CICA Museum, NYC Documentary Film Festival, Burning Man, NeurIPS, Deconstrukt, Elektron Tallinn, Floating Projects, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Osage Gallery.

Zijing Song is a curatorial PhD student at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She has worked with public TV in Nanjing. Her work has been shown at Singing Waves Gallery @CityU and Floating Projects @JCCAC.

Yating Sun is an animator and art director at Institute of Digital Media Technology. Her work has been exhibited at Los Angeles City Hall and San Diego Animation Festival.

Stairway to Helheim

PerMagnus Lindborg
2021

Sound installation

with 8-channel audio

Image credits: Credit - PerMagnus Lindborg (2021), Ossian Elgström, Yggdrasil, Ragnarök, _ Viking Gods Of Asgard (ca 1930)

Artist Statement

Stairway to Helheim by PerMagnus Lindborg (2021) is an eight-channel sound installation originally commissioned for the Soundislands: Re:Sound exhibition at ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 13-21 November 2021. Designed for a staircase, it is a sonification of weather records provided by Hong Kong Observatory: rainfall, temperature, ‘hot nights’, ‘hot days’, and the sea level in Victoria Harbour, covering 138 years, between January 1884 and September 2021. The author assisted by Manni Chen and Daye Yoon recorded the sonic material for the piece using chairs, bottles, balls, and compact discs. The sound of physical interactions with these objects was then subjected to cross-synthesis, yielding a piece of 47 minutes.

In Norse mythology, Helheim is the lowest part of the afterworld, the world of the dead. It is ruled by the goddess of death, Hel, a daughter of Loki. As visitors tread up the staircase, they are met with sonic objects splashing down - obscenely bouncing yoga balls, a hundred tennis balls, a thousand ping pong balls, crashing CDs. The cascade seemingly never-ending, visitors will nevertheless eventually reach the top floor. Released from struggle, they float serenely into the calm of the top level – is it Parnassum, Helheim, or Purgatory? Or is it another test altogether? (http://soundislands.com/stairway-to-helheim/)

Artist Biography

PerMagnus Lindborg, PhD, is a research-driven composer and sound artist, author of more than a hundred media artworks and compositions, commissioned or selected for ArtScience Museum (Singapore 2021), Osage Gallery (Hong Kong 2021), Banga Gallery (Hong Kong 2020/21), CubeFest (Virginia 2019), Berlin Konzerthaus (2018), Xuhui Museum (Shanghai 2017), Tonspur (Vienna 2016), National Gallery (Singapore 2015), Onassis Centre (Athens 2014), World Stage Design (Cardiff 2013), Moderna Museet (Stockholm 2008), Centre Pompidou (Paris 2003), etc. Won awards for short films at World Film Carnival (2021), Cannes Short, and TIFF (2020), and for composition at SSO [First Prize] (Norway 2002), Forum [Audience Prize] (Canada 1996), Young Artist and TONO Awards (Norway 1998, 1999, 2003). Referred publications in PLoS One, Leonardo, Applied Acoustics, Frontiers, Applied Sciences, JAES, IRCAM-Delatour, Springer-LNCS, and conference proceedings such as SMC, ICMC, ICMPC, NIME, and ICAD. Serves as Regional Director for Asia-Oceania of the International Computer Music Association, and as Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

[In]finite Octagon

Angela Liong, Joyce Koh and Chee Kiong Yeo
2020

Audiovisual work

29'07"

Artist Statement

Climate change is disrupting the equilibrium of the elements in nature. This disruption allows artists opportunities to make a creative response to the state of our environment in crisis. In our work [In]finite Octagon – a 30-minute dance- film - we reflect on the ancient Chinese Eight Trigram [八卦 Ba guà] as a microcosm of the world. Each trigram is assigned to a specific element in the octagon; wind, fire, water, mountain, heaven, earth, lake and thunder.

Conceived by dance-maker Angela Liong, [In]finite Octagon is a lush 30- minute film featuring dance, new sounds using traditional instruments, and a fluid art installation to reinterpret the legend of the Eight Immortals through abstract, contemporary attributes.

We seek to update this age-old concept of existence and relationships between the natural elements in the era of Anthropocene through a filmic composition of music, dance and visuals, eliciting the collective conscience about climate change and its menacing impact to life. Relating to one of the themes in DACA, climate awareness, the dance-film reignites ancient people’s awe and connection to nature that modern urbanites lack in their endless pursuit to control and manipulate environmental resources for the purpose of economic gains.

Artist Biography

Angela Liong, Artistic Director

Angela is a prolific dance-maker with a large body of works that has shaped the distinctive dance profile of ARTS FISSION since the company’s inception in 1994. She often appropriates form and methodology from cross-discipline sources to innovate new ways of dance making.

Arts Magazine (1999) called Angela “Singapore’s shaman of dance” for her penchant of drawing material from cultural heritage and mythologies to address the human spirit in her dance work. Angela remains close to this creative practice by continuous referencing traditional cultures and making them new and relevant to modern times. Angela has created many site works in unconventional public spaces to solicit place memory from the urban public through immersive dance experience. Her dance works for ARTS FISSION have been presented regionally and internationally.

Angela is the recipient of the 2009 Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest arts and cultural accolade.

Joyce Beetuan Koh, Composer

Award-winning composer, Joyce Koh is Senior Lecturer and Vice Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies and Academic Enhancement, Office of Academic Affairs, at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts since 2014.

Joyce Koh has a creative output ranging from concert music, dance collaborations, multimedia production, to interactive sound installations. Originating from her interests in architecture and interdisciplinarity, her work explores notions of sonic canvas, space and theatre of music. As described by the International Piano Quarterly, her sound world “engages the intellect and requires a different approach”.

She has an accomplished record of performances at international festivals, notably International Computer Music Conferences, International Symposium on Electronic Arts, World Stage Design, Biennale Musiques France, Sir Henry Wood Promenade UK, London Spitalfields Festival, Melbourne Arts Festival, Sydney InsideOut Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Singapore Dan:s Festival, and Soundislands Festival.

Yeo Chee Kiong, Sculptor

Yeo Chee Kiong (b. 1970) is a contemporary sculptor and installation artist who is fascinated with the language and spatial relationship between object, space and authorship. His work destabilises the familiar notions of spatial proportions and perspectives, whilst examining the human conditions in the construction of an extended surreal world.

As an alumnus of the Glasgow School of Art (UK) and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore), his list of conferred awards and commendations include the NAFA Distinguished Alumni Medal for his outstanding achievement in Singapore art scene (2016),

Yeo’s work has also been part of a number of internationally recognised group exhibitions, biennales and symposiums, including "Sculpture Survey 2018", 35th Annual Exhibition, Gomboc Gallery, Perth, 14th Qita Asian Sculpture Exhibition, FumioAsakura Sculpture Museum, Japan (2018), Keelung Harbour Biennale, Taiwan (2018), Venice Biennale, Italy (2017), 3rd FORMOSA Sculpture Biennial, Taiwan (2017), Suide International Stone Sculpture Symposium, China (2017).

Yeo is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor, Sculpture Department, National Taiwan University of Arts.

Website: http://cheekiongyeo.com/

Without Strings

Hongshuo Fan
2020

Audiovisual work

13'21"

Artist Statement

‘Without strings' is a real-time environmental data interactive audio-visual installation. It is inspired by the traditional Chinese ink painting and the Guqin performance. It emphasizes the 'hidden' and 'blank' in ink painting and the 'Improvisation by feeling surrounding' in the Guqin performance. The visual part is a virtual tree that grew by absorbing environmental data, and the sound part is a physical modelling Guqin synthesizer driven by a pre-trained AI model. The combination of visual and sound creates an artistic reflection of how the machine senses the world, also a natural and immersive experience for the audience.

Artist Biography

Hongshuo Fan is a Chinese cross-disciplinary composer, new media artist and researcher. His work has involved various real-time interactive multimedia contents, such as acoustic instruments, live electronics, generative visuals, light and body movements. His research and creative interest focus on the fusion of traditional culture and cutting-edge technology in the form of contemporary art. His output spans live interactive electronics, installations, and audio-visual works. Hongshuo is currently a PhD candidate at NOVARS Research Centre (The University of Manchester), also the teaching assistant for the interactive Media Technologies course and postgraduate technical leader on the MANTIS System (a 56-speaker cluster).

Extreme Weather in Three Movements

András Blazsek
2021

Audio

35'23"

Artist Statement

This composition consists of three movements: Global Solar Radiation – Severe Typhoon Mangkhut – Estimated Maximum Surface Wind. The movements have been designed for a traditional auditorium with the idea that the audience will listen to all three pieces for the entirety of their duration. The composition combines data sonification and field recordings to perform different permutations of the same event—tropical cyclone Mangkhut (Hong Kong, 2018)—with the aim of giving listeners access to its multiple timescales and spatial dimensions. It asks them to return to this one incident of extreme weather to both reflect on the broader timeline of which it was a part and resist the desensitising flow of information about such events.

Artist Biography

András Blazsek (Hungary/Slovak Republic, 1984) is a research-based mixed-media artist who works in sound, sculpture, installation and media archaeology focusing on visualization, sonification and modes of translating sound into architectural environments. He is a founding member of the Hungarian-Slovak collective BA–Unrated, recently exhibited by the Ludwig Museum (Budapest) in collaboration with ZKM (Karlsruhe). His work has been presented by LACE (Los Angeles), Futura (Prague) and Residency Unlimited (New York) among others. He received the Baker-Tilly Award 2020 for his site-responsive installation at Kunst Im Tunnel (Düsseldorf). Since 2019, he has worked as a part-time lecturer at the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong and at the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University.