KLIMATON is a research and practice-based project that addresses the problem of communicability of scientific facts in the context of climate change. It questions the nature of doubt in the natural sciences and addresses the lack of a cultural approach to the Earth as a holistic entity. The cross-disciplinary project is aimed at translating scientific knowledge into cultural practice, with a focus on sound and performance, in order to generate new modes of gaining knowledge and gathering together.

KLIMATON ARCTIC≈2020

generative sound object

more to READ & LISTEN about

STRUCTURE AND SOUND SAMPLES:

The object is structured into six sections, following the key areas of the expedition and each of these sections is further divided in four categories. A total of twenty-four datasets, covering a period of eleven months. From a scientific point of view, the selected datasets are the most relevant ones that most clearly represent climate-related aspects. We have identified these together with the scientists of the MOSAiC expedition.

SUPPORT:

E.ON Stiftung

Universität der Künste Berlin

Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)

University of Colorado Boulder

KLIMATON ARCTIC≈2020

generative sound object

The sound object KLIMATON ARCTIC≈ 2020 is based on a seminal event in scientific research: At the end of 2020, the research expedition MOSAiC (Alfred Wegener Institute) returned from its Arctic voyage, having spent more than a year collecting data with a kilometre-long network of measuring stations. It is the largest scientific data collection from the region ever and possibly also one of the last large-scale recording of a disappearing landscape that is considered by scientists to be "the key witness of climate change".

Together with a group of MOSAiC scientists, the composer Thies Mynther and a technical team including Juan Duarte, Chris von Rautenkranz, Martin Edelmann and Jan Münter, we developed a sound instrument that outputs the data from the Arctic as sound - creating a large scale sonified portrait of a disappearing landscape. The instrument is a hybrid between a sonification device and a music instrument - allowing an open approach to the data.

The data of different categories of landscape are played using human voices as the keynote, modulating them and creating a strange choral voice. The earth assimilates the human voice and makes it "speak the language of the earth" -  a "geological turn", a reversed network of relationships in which the landscape is playing the human and not the other way round.  

more to READ & LISTEN about

STRUCTURE AND SOUND SAMPLES:

The object is structured into six sections, following the key areas of the expedition and each of these sections is further divided in four categories. A total of twenty-four datasets, covering a period of eleven months. From a scientific point of view, the selected datasets are the most relevant ones that most clearly represent climate-related aspects. We have identified these together with the scientists of the MOSAiC expedition.

ATMOSPHERE

Air temperature

Air pressure

Wind speed

Ozone

SNOW

Temperature

Height

Snowfall

Albedo

SEA ICE

Temperature

Thickness

Cracking

Drift

OCEAN

Temperature

Salinity

Turbulence

Solar radiation

ECOSYSTEM

Algae

Organic matter

Plankton

Fishes

BIOGEOCHEMISTRY

Carbon monoxide

Methane

Berylium 7

Dimethyl sulphide

CREDITS:

CONCEPT / ARTISTIC DIRECTION / PRODUCTION:

Adnan Softić, Nina Softić

SOUND DESIGN / MUSICAL INTERPRETATION: Thies Mynther

DATA MANAGEMENT:

Dr. Sebastian Mieruch - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

TECHNICAL TEAM: Pascal Staudt, Martin Edelmann, Chris von Rautenkranz, Lukas Esser, Jan Münther

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Jons Vukorep

SCIENTIFIC CONSULTING: 

Dr. Mario Hoppmann - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

Dr. Giulia Castellani - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

Dr. Hauke Flores - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

Dr. Sandra Tippenhauer - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

Dr. Ingrid Linck Rosenheim - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER

Dr. Dorothea Bauch – GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, GER

Prof. Dr. Jennifer Hutchings - Oregon State University, Corvallis, US

Prof. Dr. Matthew Shupe - University of Colorado, Boulder, US

Dr. Serdar Sakinan - Wageningen Marine Research Institute, Wageningen, NL

Dr. Jacqueline Stefels - University of Groningen, NL

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Prof. Dr. Marcus Rex, Prof. Dr. Alberto De Campo, Dr. Hinrich Thölken, Daniela Berglehn, Tirdad Zolghadr

We thank all those who contributed to MOSAiC and made this endeavour possible.

SUPPORT:

E.ON Stiftung

Universität der Künste Berlin

Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)

University of Colorado, Boulder