Housemate Mark Taylor, a scientist recently from Colorado University, shows me a videopod that explains Antarctic ice melt, and suggests it as a powerful text for responding to through moving, drawing and animation. The video could be projected in the studio.
A new method for measuring the thickness of Antarctica’s ice sheet uses the different degrees of gravitational pull exerted by ice mass on two satellites flying it in different positions:
Physics Professor John Wahr is part of a team of University of Colorado at Boulder researchers who used data from a pair of NASA satellites to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet has lost significant mass in recent years. In this photo-enhanced podcast, Wahr discusses the team’s findings that the ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice annually.
University of Colorado podcast: Is Antarctica melting?
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I am reminded of a video I watched at the Cape Farewell exhibition, The Ship: the art of climate change, at the British Museum last year. The collapse of a large ice mass was captured and played on a video loop. A woman sitting nearby had been watching it with me. She rose at the point of the ice collapse, and walked gravely from the room. Her gesture had a profound effect on me, validating my own response. There was something about the way she moved that moved me, recognising in it my own response to eye witnessing some physical evidence of climate change.
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Today I am animating to the voice of expeditioner Colin Christiansen, describing the sounds of birds traveling a great distance during a rare lull in the wind at Heard Island.
In moving lines I try to capture the rhythm, pauses, and levels and excitement in his voice, and suggest his vast distance from the sound, and the wild nature of the birds.
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Listening to the voice of Colorado University Professor John Wahr, I am struck by the measured and certain tone of his voice.