The Antarctica Project
The light is so intense and bright that it modifies the
colors throughout the day, while the horizon line blends into a white
plane where the sun bounces
and never sets.
A deep and vivid feeling seizes me when, at the end of a long voyage,
I step on Antarctic soil, a soil covered with fossils and a soil which
houses the largest natural freshwater reserve on our planet. While
there, I adapt to the weather and the severity of the freezing gales,
where the beauty of the vastness of space and the extreme temperatures
are juxtaposed. I see Antarctica as a virgin continent operating as an
experimental laboratory in every discipline, including art, of course.
In May 2004, I began to develop a project to be undertaken in
Antarctica, which relied on the support and enthusiasm of the Dirección
Nacional del Antártico (Directorate for the Argentine Antarctica) and
the Programa Antártico Argentino (Argentine Antarctic Program). Within
this project, I attempt to ponder the calving of large masses of ice due
to global warming, the resulting damage and indifference, and art from
the extreme. Antarctic art reminds the world of its frozen seas, its
species, and its icebergs, and how important they are for the
terrestrial ecosystem.
Antarctica is losing its contour; a geography of perennial ice is
turning into a series of clipped off pieces of land. Glacial masses are
melting. Under their water layers, methane gas leaks and, as if in a
closed circuit, ends up strengthening the greenhouse effect. Climate
changes are accelerated and this provokes unimagined catastrophes.
Masses of ice turn to water, causing seas to raise their level.
I have traveled to Antarctica four times since 2004, to work on art
projects involving video projections using glaciers as the backdrop,
performances on ice shelves during storms, photography and video. The
entire project was based on research by two scientists: Dr. Rodolfo del
Valle and Dr. Pedro Skvarca, who study the effects of climate change on
ice shelves and the appearance of methane gas. The project was divided
into performances and video installations, both using photography and
video, three of which are described here:
"Methane"
"Methane" involved several performances which were carried out on the
snowed plateau of Marambio. The performances engaged with the
inaccessibility and loneliness of that frozen, foggy geography which is
being slowly invaded by emanating toxic gases. "Methane" also reflected
the effort humans make to avoid injury in those climate-related
struggles.
Natural methane gas (CH4) produced the main thawing in the Antarctic
after the last glaciations. This defrosting caused the sea level to rise
some 100-120 meters, and this flooded some Antarctic areas, which were
previously exposed to the atmosphere's severe cold during the
glaciations. Methane is one of the three most dangerous substances
contributing to the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, and the leaking
of this gas into the atmosphere from the melting ice has
destructive compounding effects on climate warming.
The atmosphere contains less methane than carbon dioxide, but
due to this new imbalance in the methane polar reservoirs, methane is
released into the atmosphere. This creates a feedback loop in which
heat in the atmosphere melts the ice causing a rise in the sea level.
This rise heats the methane
reservoirs, leaking methane gas into the atmosphere which gets
overheated and melts the ice. The melting ice produces water that goes into the
ocean and causes a rise in the sea level, thus, the vicious circle is
closed.
"Red (net)"
The performance "Red" was carried out over the Buenos Aires Glacier in
Esperanza Bay in the Antarctic Peninsula. The title "Red" originates from a
play on words between the English word for the color and the Spanish for
weft or net. In the performance, a person dressed in red unfolded an
eighty meter long piece of transparent red material over the surface of
the glacier. The performance reflects on people as manipulators of the environment,
interfering in their surroundings and originating drastic changes on
terrestrial surfaces. It insinuates the involvement of wounds, passion
and blood.
The past two decades were probably the warmest during the last five
centuries. In the preceding twenty years there have been many drastic
changes in the glaciers and the ice shelves of the Antarctic Peninsula
induced by atmospheric and oceanic warming. The major changes correspond
to the disintegration of Sectors A and B of the Larsen Ice Shelf, and
their influence in the dynamics of those glaciers that fed them. We
noticed that both events took place and coincided with the two
warmest summers in the region. In areas where the ice shelves no longer
exist, the glaciers have started to accelerate, to lose thickness
significantly, to experience beats and to recede behind the lines of
support, all of which contributed to a rise in the sea level.
"Projection"
Two videos, "Sunflowers" (20 minutes, 2004) and "Encapsulated" (10
minutes, 2004), were projected on the icy land of Base Marambio and on
the hillside (thus generating a 120 meter high image) and on the base of
Buenos Aires glacier in Base Esperanza. We used the whiteness of the
glacial ice as a screen and its dwellers as performers in the
installation. The dwellers (the staff of Marambio and Esperanza,
together with their spouses, children and the children's teachers) moved
to and from the flames and sunflowers shown on the frozen soil, giving
this event a peculiar and quite moving character.
"Sunflowers" was shot at the growth site of these plants, the
Argentine Pampas, where they seem to fester under the effects of the
wind. The field is peaceful until the sunflowers catch fire; they burn
one after the other until the whole field becomes a huge, devastating
blaze. Fire covers the entire image up to the moment this dies out,
leaving only an empty space after it. The sunflower presents a perfect
dichotomy: ornamentation versus human food source.
"Encapsulated" depicts human hostility in huge urban centers. In the
video, a group of people is locked in a transparent capsule of a
metallic structure. The structure rockets up until it disappears into the skies
while a new group of encapsulated beings start their infinite
itineraries.
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