Skip to main content

Mapping rates of change in nature to art and music

The second movement of the digital video and musical piece, Harbingers, is called Lakes Not Frozen. The idea for this piece grew from research into subtle indicators of change in our environment, or "harbingers" of climate change, that might lend themselves to artistic work incorporating real world scientific data. 

Looking for temperature observations from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and timings for winter freezing, I located a public dataset and identified a lake with a trend for when it first froze between the years 1900-2020. 

The Lakes Not Frozen movement contain visual elements that express in an abstract way the severity of winters during the period of observation and change over time. In light of the observed trend that cold places are warming faster than warm places, a lake in the Sierras of Northern California serves well to demonstrate subtle shifts in freezing and thawing, and by extension, available water in surrounding lakes and rivers from snow or rain. Less snow and ice over time impacts trees, plants and animal species that depend on cold winters and storage of water in solid form.

 

 

How are we, the artists and composers, responding to the data sample from the lake observations? 

 

 

Rates of change are being translated and applied to sequences of video and music in interpretative ways and using mathematical modeling--the primary guiding principle for all three movements of Harbingers. 

In Lakes Not Frozen, we're accelerating tempos and deconstructing sequences of music and video using forms of digital processing to distort and disrupt the original forms--just as ice cracks, breaks apart, melts into water and runs off beyond the borders of its former container, the lake.

For the composers and live musicians, this shattering of anticipated form and tempo offers a challenge to respond, whether to play elements as counterpoints, in harmony with the former structure, or to shift to keep up and align with the changes. This challenge is akin to those which we all might face and need to adapt to, in order to continue "life as we know it", or to build new structures for survival in our shared environment. 

The tension around noticing change and responding to it is the key driver behind Harbingers. Composers include Paul Godwin, Miguel Noya, and Aron Faria.

-by Ameera Godwin, Video Artist/Artistic Director, Myrtle Tree Arts, for Earth Dayta


Harbingers will be performed at the event, Earth Dayta. Please see information and links below.

Web site: https://www.arconservancy.org/event/special-event-earth-dayta/

Make a reservation: https://app.donorview.com/3PM6o
$10/car

Event Location:
941 Cold Springs Rd.
Placerville, CA 95667 + Google Map
Insta: @myrtletreearts


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet the Voices of RIPE AREA 2025: Where Art and Ecology Converge

Featured Artists and Contributors Voices from the Literary and Visual Arts The festival's exploration of human-plant relationships extends into the realm of words and images through the contributions of Lara Gularte, Kate Marianchild, Jessica Carew Craft, Andie Thrams, Corina del Carmel, and Susan Hayne . These and other accomplished writers, poets, and visual artists bring decades of experience exploring the intersections between environmental awareness, creative expression, and community building. Gathering of Indigenous Voices and Wisdom This year's festival promises to be an extraordinary convergence of traditional knowledge, contemporary artistry, and ecological awareness, featuring Stan Padilla, Kimberly ShiningStar Petree, Christina Almendariz, Sara Raskie and Tony Cervantes, Marcela Tayaba, Phillip Moore, Mignon Geli, Chuck Kritzon, and Nathan Kuan Salazar-Uhlmeyer . These diverse artists bring a rich tapestry of cultural perspectives and creative disciplines, from ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Botanist: Where Science Meets Song in California's Riparian Zones at RIPE AREA 2025

From underground fungal networks to the secret communications of native plants, our new musical performance imagines some of the hidden conversations and mutual relationships happening all around us. When the Land Speaks, Who's Listening? In California's foothills, where systematic conversion has stripped away much of our native riparian habitat, something remarkable persists: the intricate web of relationships between plants, pollinators, and the soil itself. It's here, in this landscape of both loss and resilience, that The Botanist: A Plant-based Song Cycle takes root. Each season has its ripening—a time when seeds break from their shells, when black crows and phoebes feast on millions of seeds, when tight young buds burst open with endless colors, smells, and flavors. This is the world of Ripe Area , our one-day festival celebrating the profound interdependence between humans and the native plant species that sustain us. The Science Behind the Songs What began as an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Walking As A Ritual

The writer Robert McFarlane brilliantly expresses reflections about walking in The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind. While walking, we get to know a place, but more deeply, we are shaped and changed by the landscape. Walking gives me a magical entry into place. I feel that I join with archetypal beings whose feet, hooves, boots, and paws have worn away the same ground. A walk in nature can generate a map of profound emotion, which I can experience as awe, love, grief. Like a ghost, I pass through a world of feelings and try to access the traces of other ghosts that have traveled the trail before me.  Creating the Fire/Land piece is an “art walk” to explore feelings like love and grief about landscape.  I walk to contemplate my connection to place in the face of my climate grief. I’m grieving with the forest as a biological creature that can only hold so much. It can only bounce back so far. The new USDA Forest Service report on Californi...
Post a Comment
Read more