The Ice-Time project is a creative response to the perilous state of Earth's ecosystem. Ice, like geology, is a primary indicator of the deep time of our planet’s environment. Ice is also the most visible indicator of the short-term effects of climate change. Glacial ice presents a four-dimensional hyper-view into time and space, an icy tesseract giving us an 800,000 years view backwards into Earth’s climatological past and forwards towards the pending outcomes of current rising temperatures.
Ice-Time will be an immersive, multi-projection video and sound installation combining art and science that minutely examines the structure of ice and glaciers to reveal the time embedded within. The intention of this project is to convey the essence of ice and its intimations; to elicit the poetics contained within frozen water as revealed by current climate research. The images will occupy an architecture of translucent screens that layer in a faceting effect, merging into crystalline collages of shifting combinations as visitors move through. A three-dimensional soundscape will enlarge the image space, composed from sonified data, field recordings of live ice, and excerpts of interviews with climate scientists. By means of a vivid, material presence of image, sound, data, and time, the installation will imbue the spectator with a deep awareness of the environmental and culture implications of ice.
Research for Ice-Time combines the methods of a naturalist in the field, collaboration with experts, and the collecting of scientific and cultural data. Our primary interest is in the relationship between ice, time, and the environment, engaging with contemporary climate research through our scientific collaborators to present the underlying causes, manifestations, and broader ramifications of myriad forms of ice as an aesthetic experience to a broad and varied public.