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Ground Truth: Monitoring and Measuring the Social Geography of Global Climate Change
Video from the Ground Truth installation is available at www.andreapolli.com.
What impact has the ubiquity of computerized devices had on public
understanding of the environment in light of the climate crisis? How has
the public participated in the process of weather and climate data
collection and modeling? Are new structures for public participation
developing? Can artworks contribute to a change in these cultural
practices? Can artworks function as a driver or catalyst for social
change?
With these questions in mind, last year I had the opportunity to go
to Antarctica for two months, on a National Science Foundation-sponsored
artist's residency where I worked alongside scientists studying the
global implications of Antarctic weather and climate change. The
Antarctic is unlike any other place on earth: geographically,
politically, and culturally. Larger than the U.S., it is a frontier where
borders and nationalities take a back seat to scientific collaboration
and cooperation, a place where the compass becomes meaningless yet
navigation is a matter of life and death. It is an extreme environment
that holds some of the most unique species, but it is also an ecosystem
undergoing rapid change. 2007/2008 marks the fourth International Polar
Year (IPY), the largest and most ambitious international effort to
investigate the impact of the poles on the global environment.
Prior to my trip, I had spent several years working in collaboration
with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm
and climate information through sound (a process called sonification).
I created a spatialized sonification of highly detailed models of storms
that devastated the New York area; a series of sonifications of actual
and projected climate in Central Park, the heart of New York City and
one of the world's first locations for climate monitoring; and a
real-time multichannel sonification and visualization of weather in the
Arctic.
I wanted to go to Antarctica to find a way to more closely engage
with the issue of global climate change. I had been using data from
remote weather stations in my projects, though I had never actually
visited them. While in Antarctica, I spent most of my time in two
places: The Dry Valleys (77°30'S 163°00'E) on the shore of McMurdo
Sound, 3500 km due south of New Zealand, the driest and largest
relatively ice-free area on the continent, completely devoid of
terrestrial vegetation. It is a terrain of frozen lakes, glaciers and
mountain rocks that many scientists believe may be similar to the
terrain of Mars in the past. I also spent time at the geographic South
Pole (90°00'S), the center of a featureless flat white expanse, on top
of ice nearly nine miles thick.
In researching how I might approach a project in this unusual
setting, I looked for inspiration from history. I made a connection to
the writings of the early-20th-century explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. In
the diaries of his solo winter-over at a remote Antarctic camp, he
writes of being alone and slowly poisoned by a faulty heating system yet
unable to live without this warmth. The weather instruments he
monitored were the only things that provided him with solace:
"I was not long in discovering one thing: that, if anything was
eventually to regularize the rhythm by which I should live at Advance
Base, it would not be the weather so much as the weather instruments."
Unlike Byrd, my focus in Antarctica quickly shifted from the
instruments to the people. I learned that many more people are stationed
in Antarctica to observe and record weather and climate than are
machines, and that the scientists call this process of observation
'ground truthing.'
Why, with sophisticated instrumentation and remote sensing, do we
depend upon humans on the ground to look up at clouds? What is it that
the machines are missing and what is the human role in understanding
what is unfolding? What is the meaning of ground truth and can it
inform and enhance our relationship with the environment? These are the
questions I am exploring in my current series of works called Ground
Truth. Ground Truth presents interpretations of data, interviews, and
documentation of weather observers and scientists as they discuss,
maintain, and gather data from remote sites.
In interviews with scientists about this subject, I was struck by how
many spoke about the importance of non-quantitative knowledge. I
thought that only numbers would matter to the scientists, but this was not the
visceral experience of a site, but I was surprised to find this was not
the case at all. For example, Dr. Andrew Fountain, the head of the Dry
Valleys Long Term Ecological Research Group, said:
"Just because you have the data doesn't mean you understand the
system. It's important to come down and view the landscape and in our
case view the glaciers, and see how the glaciers are reacting to these
changing environments. And that feeds into our understanding and our
non-quantitative knowledge."
This interview, as well as audio and video interviews with nearly 20
other science researchers, along with a preview of a short video
documentary, raw sound recordings, images, video clips, and project
updates are accessible to the public on my website
www.90degreessouth.org.
In addition to the video documentary, part of the Ground Truth
project is a temporary public art installation consisting of a modified
weather station interpreting data in real time. Audiences experience the
instrumentation used by scientists and learn about the data being
collected through visualizations and sonifications. The station has
been installed at the Atlas Center for Art and Technology in Boulder,
Colorado and will soon be installed at Eyebeam in New York City.
Despite the developed world's climate-controlled interiors and easy
access to all kinds of fresh produce at any time of year, our lives are
still dependent upon the weather and climate. With global warming, our
dependence is becoming even more apparent. In part, the purpose of
giving the public access to climate and weather information and
instrumentation helps people understand our connection to the atmosphere
and promotes greater harmony with these natural forces.
Writing nearly 100 years ago of the harsh Antarctic environment,
Richard Byrd realized that living simply, in touch with the earth's
natural rhythms, is not only possible, but actually beneficial:
"It occurred to me then that half the confusion in the world comes
from not knowing how little we need."
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