Screens and speakers display five audiovisual sculptures. Each sculpture interprets a different region on earth. The selected regions are likely to be more affected by climate change than others: Sahel, Middle East, South Asia, Amazonas and Arctic.
The interpretation of the climate data is done by an audiovisual ecosystem that Birk Schmithüsen created from an aesthetic perspective. The ecosystem consists of a machine learning system (ML / AI), a sound- and a video generator. The ML system acts as a translater between climate parameters and visual- and sound generators. The translation model is trained with prearranged aesthetic associations between the different media.
Since all five sculptures are trained with the same translation model, the climatic differences in the different regions can be experienced in a spatially condensed way in the installation.
The parameters accessable in the long period of 450 years are temperatur minimum, temperatur maximum, precipitation, specific humidity and sea level pressure.
The work will be finished by the end of 2022.
The research material can be seen here: are.na/birk-schmithusen/climatesculptures
The code development is here: github.com/birkschmithuesen/ClimateSculptures
Many thanks to the Copernicus project for supporting me in finding the right climate model.
Many thanks to Ulrich Römer and Herrad Werner from WaetherOnline for extracting the data needed out of the climate models and many helpful discussions.
