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Proposals for environmental artworks

Written by Juhuu on May 18, 2009.

Pixelache and Helsingin Energia have invited an international group of artists to propose public artworks related to energy consumption. Among the invited artists are Unsworn Industries (Erik Sandelin & Magnus Torstensson), Miska Knapek, Andy Best, Maria Duncker and 4um (Karthik Acharya, Arto Tommiska, Elina Alatalo and Jukka Hautamäki).

The artists’ proposals will be made public in October 2009 and selected artworks will be realised during 2010.

The artworks can (but do not have to) utilize real-time energy consumption data from Helsingin Energia (see more information below).

>>ARTISTS' PROPOSALS
>>ART, SCIENCE & ECOLOGY WORK FEATURED IN PREVIOUS PIXELACHE EDITIONS

ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN HELSINKI

Drawing on the positive outcomes of Nuage Vert, the energy company Helsingin Energia has released more real-time data about energy consumption in Helsinki area. Since Friday 6 February 2009, the hourly updated information about electricity consumption, heating and cooling has been available online. Helsinki Energy is the first energy company in Finland to release this amount of detailed real-time information. This level of information transparency about energy consumption is also rare amongst energy companies in the world today.

More information:

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INVITED ARTISTS

UNSWORN INDUSTRIES

Unsworn Industries is an interaction design and innovation studio based in Malmö, Sweden.
We craft beautiful action spaces.
www.unsworn.org

Examples of previous work:

TELEMEGAPHONE DALE

Telemegaphone Dale is a seven-metres tall loudspeaker sculpture on top of the Bergskletten mountain overlooking the idyllic Dalsfjord in Western Norway. Anyone can dial the Telemegaphone´s phone number and have the sound of their voice projected out across the fjord, the valley and the village of Dale.
www.unsworn.org/telemegaphone

PARASCOPE

Parascopes are tall binocular viewers that help people imagine, consider and discuss potential futures. In collaboration with the city of Malmö, Unsworn Industries developed three public Parascopes, to allow citizens to view panoramic visualisations of possible futures and engage in a discussion about how a city with less cars could, and should, be like.
www.unsworn.org/parascope

POWER PILGRIMS

The Amber Order Pilgrims travel the world to pay reverence to and express their trust in the Great Electrical System. On their pilgrimages they wear traditional Amber Robes that are held together by battery-powered electromagnets. When the battery runs low the robe begins falling apart, requiring the pilgrim to recharge for 30 minutes every other hour. In order to continue his or her journey the pilgrim thus depends on the availability of public power outlets and the generosity of strangers.
(Created in collaboration with Desearch and Revelopment)
www.unsworn.org/rd/pilgrims.htm

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MISKA KNAPEK

Miska Knapek is an artist designer, with a past in Graphic Information Design (BA) and graduate studies in artistic interaction design, currently based at Media Lab Helsinki. He explores chaotic patterns and challenging fundamental perceptions of society, optics, time, and space. Applying information visualisation techniques, to photographic/sensory/datamined material, Knapek’s work traces the hidden lives of nature, society and people’s immediate personal surrounds. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Ars Electronica and Transmediale.
www.knapek.org

Examples of previous work:

WINDTRACING

Windtracing draws the story of the wind’s six month tango across central Helsinki. It is a commemoration of a friend’s Helsinki stay, and an staged outing of Helsinki’s blustery heavenly ruler.

Windtracing answers the question of, “what would the wind draw, if it could draw?”, what is its visual character? Using data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s weather sensors at the top of the Helsinki Olympic Stadium Tower, temporally spanning the 6 month period of an artist friend’s Helsinki stay, I’ve given the wind a pen to draw with.

SUNTRACING

Suntracing brings into visual and overviewable form a natural phenomenon with huge seasonal mood-swings up here in the North, the amount of solar radiation - essentially light - that falls on us through the year.

Wandering right to left, row by row upwards, is a visual narration of the amount of solar radiation falling on central Helsinki, over a year. Reading the image, row by row, right to left, light is dispersed by areas of darkness. This is the light of days divided by the darkness of nights.

During night it is dark, then as the sun’s morning rays start hitting Helsinki, the solar energy increases - making the circles larger - reaching peak values around 13:00 in the afternoon. After this, the amount of solar radiation starts decreasing, until none of the sun’s rays hit Helsinki, the circles becoming very small, and there being night.

TIME IMAGING

Visualizing long periods of time, using photographic equipment mixed with a bit of self-written software.

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MARIA DUNCKER

Maria Duncker is a nature-freak obsessed with human interaction.

Examples of previous work:

BLOOM

Bloom is a small effort to reach heavenly feelings by diving into a blooming cherry tree.
http://open.fixc.fi/?q=node/157
 Bloom (2006, color, 00:04:06) Director, script, camera, animation, editing, sound: Maria Duncker
Music: Tuomo Puranen

MULTINATIONAL FOLKDRESSES

Photo: Tuomo Puranen
Multinational folkdresses 2008, opening night at Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki
Dresses made out off supermarket bags, to be worn on special occasions.

CONGREGATION - BLESSING - PARADISE LOST - SLIDE-SHOW

Installation in Kumu,Tallinn spring 2009

Congregation : Glimpse of potato-people on the move, slidecollage.
Blessing : Potatoes in a ritual of funeral and fertility.
Paradise lost : Upside-down  root of  a giant storm-fallen spruce.
Slide-show : Three sad stories to schlagers sung by Carola.

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ANDY BEST

Andy Best was born in the South of England in 1963. He studied Fine Art (Sculpture) in Cardiff, Wales, before coming to Finland with a study scholarship in 1988. He studied sculpture at Kuvataideakatemia, Helsinki, for two years. His first one person exhibition was also the first exhibition to be held at the now defunct Vapauden Aukio gallery in the centre of Helsinki, which was on the site of the new Music House.

Andy has participated in numerous group and one person exhibitions in Finland and internationally. Andy is currently senior lecturer in Digital Arts at Turku University of Applied Sciences, and he has recently commenced his own PhD research at Goldsmiths, University of London, in Arts & Computational Technologies.

Website: www.andyandmerja.com

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4um

Image: Human Viz proposal by 4um.

Members of 4um are Arto Tommiska, Elina Alatalo, Jukka Hautamäki and Karthikeya Acharya.

Arto Tommiska is a statistician interested in looking and understanding patterns generated by ‘living’ in the cities of today. Elina Alatalo is an architect‐artist interested in the intertwining of virtual and physical space by new mobile and personal devices as well as ubiquitous shared communication networks, especially in connection to social media and public city space. Jukka Hautamäki is a Finnish media artist. His primary form of expression is through media installations. Karthikeya Acharya is an architect and a design researcher pursuing his doctoral studies at TaiK. With interests in social research and design, he attempts to give a form based understanding to research by creating installations with ethnographic field data.

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