Destination Earth is a multi-sensory installation revealing the connection that ties atmosphere and ocean, humans and inhabitants of the sea, into a flow of interconnected motions.
With the warming of our atmosphere, the ocean has been soaking up much of the extra heat, acting as a heat sink and temperature regulator. Warming waters and changes in the overall water circulation are impacting sound propagation in the ocean, sea mammal migratory patterns and survival, influencing in return our climate and the air we breathe everyday. Sound pollution from our shipping activity has devastating consequences on marine species which migrate through the same paths of our economic trade routes and rely on sounds for their survival.
Forged at the intersection of art, science and technology, Destination Earth explores the potential of Leonardo’s supercomputer technology in the development of an Earth model combining ocean flows, sea mammals communication and human activity through real-time ocean modelisation, generative sonification and audience participatory interaction.
The artwork involves participants to understand the correlation between our rhythm of motions as humans, ocean’s overall warming and sound pollution all across the globe. Generative sound layers connected to human movement come in dissonance or harmony with the base earth soundscape and sea mammals communications. Performers invite audiences during their visit to support the ‘regeneration’ of oceans through their slowed down walking pattern and breath.
The artwork is a portal into the very heartbeat of our planet, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a current that flows around the entire globe, connecting the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, redistributing heat and nutrients globally. Here, where life converges and the earth breathes, we are invited to witness the fragile dance of currents, stabilising our climate globally.
AUDIENCE JOURNEY
As a general narrative the piece invites for a state of contemplation and stillness, with
the speed and rate of human actions directly influencing the currents in the depth of the
ocean and creating a live and evolving soundscape.
In Destination Earth, winter is a moment of regeneration, and in this piece is
symbolically represented as an ‘inhale’. As spring and warmer months come, a sense of
bloom, progress,and speeding up occurs. Whales come back for foraging and eat their
food supply for the upcoming months. Human activity speeds up as shipping traffic during
that time of the year doubles in density. As things speed up, the rhythm and
excitement transforms into unease, tension, stress, sensing the disbalance of our warming
ecosystem. This phase is symbolically represented as an exhale/ a heartbeat.
As Autumn comes, soundscape transitions to ambient and cyclical sounds. Participants
understand a sense of slowing down, of things getting back into harmony. With the
help of performers it becomes easier for the group to come in harmony with the ocean
soundscape. This phase should feel like a deep inhale and invitation for stillness, for
participants to symbolically give the ocean enough time to recover its natural balance.
When audience members exit, a moment and opportunity for reflection and feedback
is enabled by volunteers, as well as questions to the artists and scientists.
CREDITS
Destination Earth (NZ) is a collaboration between artist Salome Bazin, generative composer Rob M Thomas, and scientist James Renwick.
Salome Bazin: Art direction
Rob M Thomas: Composer and generative music
Sebastiano Barbieri: Creative technologist
Production: The Grid Art Space
European sponsors: Cineca, Copernicus Marine Service, Serra Madre, IFAB, Emil Banca
New Zealand sponsors: British Council, British High Commissioner, Antarctic Research Programme
