Biayna Bogosian (1), Tomoko Mukai (2), Clea Waite (3)
1 : Florida International University
2 : raumraum: spatial projection | art direction
3 : Clea T. Waite Studio

A century ago, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley defended the necessity of poetry as fundamental to comprehend the unfathomable. Despite the scientific disclosures about our earth, the scale and complexity of the climate crisis have produced broken communication lines and misaligned actions. In this panel, three artists and designers explore the influence of scientific and socio-technological discoveries on their interdisciplinary work, each manifesting the invisible that questions contemporary views of natural and anthropogenic environments. The presented works address artistic and design practices that explore the liminal poetics of space, time, science, and nature.

Tomoko Mukai, KIWA: Constructed Nature

Kiwa is a spatial edge or boundary that symbolizes an extreme moment in the metamorphosis of things. Kiwa evokes the threshold at the limits of the senses that summon extreme sensations when something is generated, vanishes, or changes. KIWA Project examines the relationships between urban images and “constructed nature” from the Japanese perspective of Fudo, climate. Through the interaction of individuals from different cultural and professional backgrounds, KIWA Project deeply examines the “way of perceiving the world” from the perspectives of both art and science. It fosters a thematic understanding of “human beings as a part of an ecosystem” by developing a platform for co-creation and dialogue between diverse people, positions, and perceptions. Via performances, exhibitions, and workshops on the edges of urban water bodies, Kiwa are formed through dialogues of images, sounds, texts, objects, and gestures.

Clea T. Waite, Material Poetics

Are humans capable of discerning scales of matter and time far beyond our physical perception? Can we fathom the recession of a glacier that progresses over three generations or the slowing of an oceanic current due to anthropogenic climate change? We have given ourselves technologically enhanced vision supplemented by microscopes, telescopes, radar, sonar, and satellites. We have universal access to data shared over global networks. We live in the meta-dimensions of a redefined, disembodied world, full of strange data vistas surrounding us in manifold perspectives.

Waite considers scientific data and observational technologies as a visual language of poetics, diving deep into scientific research to unravel the cultural implications embedded within data artifacts. The juxtaposition of art and science reciprocally enriches the perspective of the other, a synthesis that coalesces our capacity to both emotionally respond to and objectively rationalize a subject.

Biayna Bogosian, Exploratory Urban Environmental Media

Although sensing and visualization technologies have advanced greatly, environmental data are still not widely, continuously, and cohesively accessible to the public. While standard methods are used to present the information, untrained citizens may be overwhelmed and disengaged by its complexity. The communication disconnect not only reduces the sensitivity and urgency, it threatens the citizens’ ability to participate in solution-making.

Bogosian combines evocative design with locative and immersive media to change the way we perceive and construct urban environments. By highlighting a number of participatory air and water quality sensing efforts, the work examines how traditional cinematic techniques coupled with narrative construction structures and immersive information visualization techniques can create climate action.