The Northern Polar Studies is a large-scale screen-based installation which uses data-sets from drifting buoys and satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice. This data has been used to model the retreat of the Arctic going back the 1980s by examining the age and distribution of sea ice. In animating this data visually, the work reveals an uncanny vision of phantasmagoric shapes, figures and tendrils of environmental ruination over an extended time period. In part equally fascinating and abject, the work expresses the plasticity, vulnerability and multidimensionality of environmental sites in an era of anthropogenic forcing. Tom Corby/Gavin Baily.
Media/date of production 2014-16
MPG4 digital data render, screen. Duration 7 mins. Scale varying.
The data derives from simulations of Sea Ice Age developed by the University of Colorado Boulder: Tschudi, M., C. Fowler, J. Maslanik, J. S. Stewart, and W. Meier. 2016. EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, 1984-2012. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/PFSVFZA9Y85G. Accessed June, 2015.
Acknowledgements
The Northern Polar Studies and Maxima-Minima has benefitted from the scientific knowledge, wisdom and generosity of Dr Beatrix Schlarb-Ridley, Professor Mike Meredith and Pete Bucktrout from the British Antarctic Survey, and Nathan Cunningham from the UK Data Archive. We also thank the ongoing support for this project provided in various guises by Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and the University of Westminster.
