IN PRODUCTION:
The ICEHOUSE ARCHITECT
The Icehouse Architect is a speculative future story depicting a time of rebuild, after the glaciers, permafrost, and polar ice caps have melted. Six multi-media and sculptural works piece together a story of an individual who has discovered a new method of building: she travels the waterways collecting heat in her body, and when she gets too full she meets us at the shoreline to pass the heat for us to do with what we will. When the transfer is complete, she returns to the water to collect. Collecting and transferring, collecting and transferring, the ice structures begin to rebuild.
“We will all be architects of this Icehouse”
Like many Northerners, I feel deep sadness about the loss of arctic ice. Within the recognition that we are embedded in global systems much more impactful than any one human action, imagining change becomes overwhelming. My choice to create this work based in speculative fabulism, was the ability to build a world just enough outside our current reality to disarm the overwhelm. I want to create a space where magic can seduce us into a space of possibility, but where science and ecological critique tethers us to the actionable now.
AESTHETIC, FORM, MATERIAL
The seductive, magic element of the story is carried into physical space by glass objects and their interaction with video and light. The glass, formed to mimic ice formations, bends and refracts light creating dreamy spectres. Five of the six works have a glass component.
Climate change intervention research and geoengineered technologies designed to mitigate ice loss, are referenced in the sculptural works in material or form. These may include: a geotextile used to protect [economically viable areas of] glaciers; glass microspheres currently being researched to increase the reflectivity of arctic shelf ice; and, seabed anchored curtains which may block warming deep ocean water from eroding marine-terminating glaciers. Whether these technologies were necessary steps to reverse the damage we have caused, or if they were (as many researchers who develop these technologies describe as “band-aid solutions to bide time” is not the question for the Icehouse Architect. For the Icehouse Architect these materials are vestigial — reminders of effort, invention and care, repurposed as storytelling tools for this new way of building. This is a key element for me, as it connects the future-time of the story to our present day, preventing the project from falling into complete fantasy or aesthetic.
PROPOSED WORKS
**The following images are the proposed sculptural works. In addition there will be two video works not pictured below: one circular floor projection with glass hoop, with video depicting the “collection of heat”; and, a large wall projection depicting the “transfer of heat” on the shoreline. The second image (four glass pieces formed as ice hanging over small video screens) will depict the “swimming the waterways” element of the story.
PROTOTYPES: LIGHTING TESTS // VIDEO TESTS
NOTES ON PROPOSED WORKS
#1
“The Ice Spirits” a a series of glass objects formed on rock bases. They are inspired by the unique ice formations on Lake Baikal in Siberia, the deepest, oldest, and most voluminous lake on earth. Baikal is also one of the world’s most rapdly warming regions, threatening an ecosystem of plants and animals unique to the lake. Researchers predict Baikal’s glaciers will become rock glaciers - landforms consisting of rock debris with interstitial ice. To a certain extent, the rocks will act as insulation to the ice. In the Icehouse story, “The Ice Spirits” have been held by the rocks until a time when ice can thrive again. Lit from the front, they cast a spectre-like reflection on the wall behind them.
#2
Three video components depict the key elements of the story: the individual swimming the waterways collecting heat; the transfer of heat to a person on shore; and the ice structures rebuilding. Glass interacts with each video in a different way to alter the image. Video will be shot in Yukon and on the Nova Scotia coast with two characters in similar costumes differentiated by color. Costumes will be solid colors to allow for keying and image compositing. Glass pieces will be incorporated into the main character's costume.
#3
The banner artworks reference current climate change interventions that block, reflect, reroute, etc. heat from the sun and warming oceans. Ie. a white vertical banner with white text “We Will All Be Architects of this Icehouse”, is coated `in reflective glass microspheres being researched by the Arctic Ice Project. The form / material may draw from the design for seabed anchored curtains, or glacier blankets. Directed at the banner is a light source mounted on a land surveyors tripod. The light illuminates the reflective text when viewed from the angle of the light. In the speculative future-time of the work, these geoengineered technologies have become vestigial, and now function as objects that hold stories of how we have been moving through climate change, towards a more ecologically just future where polar ice and glaciers can thrive.
#4
The final works are informed by glacial surveying and climate monitoring equipment. The first is a pendulum hanging at equilibrium over patterns it traced in sand. The pendulum’s stand references snow-depth monitoring stations and the pendulum is a porcelain cast plumb bob. The patterns drawn in the sand by the pendulum can be read as modelling the system of collective responsibility: traces of the collective forces acting upon the pendulum until it reaches equilibrium. The second reference is a surveyor tripod as the light source for the banner.