SEVEN METERS Art events to highlight climate change

Presentation of the planned events from the SevenMeters office

SEVEN METERS

by Jens Galschiot (DK)

sculptor

SevenMeters.net is an art project launched to highlight the problems caused by the climatic change, with a special focus on the human victims – the climate refugees.

The sculptor Jens Galschiot is the initiator of SevenMeters. The aim of the initiative is focus the consequences of global warming. Galschiot is renowned for plenty of thought-provoking inter­national art manifestations focusing on global issues, see www.aidoh.dk

Popular anchorage is essential for SevenMeters. The aim is to engage organizations and individuals and make them join the initiative and carry out their own SevenMeters activities, in Copenhagen and in other places all over the world. So blinking red lights will become a worldwide danger signal saying ‘Red alarm – Climate change’.

7 different art events will highlight the climate change from various angles:

1. The 7 meters line in Copenhagen is a visualization of the rise of the sea level that will be the result if all the ice in Greenland melts. A line of blinking red lights powered by solar cells is placed at 7 meters above mean sea level. The line will be mounted on a stretch of 20-24 kilometers in Copenhagen, especially around the city lakes, the Bella Center and the canals. The line symbolizes that we’re heading for a climatic catastrophe, and that the politicians (and their voters) do not do enough to prevent the threads of global warming. The line will spur the consciousness about global warming and strengthen the employ red blinking lights as a universal danger signal related to climate change.

2. The Pulse of the Earth at the Bella Center metro station. A light installation illuminates the concrete construction of the elevated track of the metro in a slowly pulsating red light. The light is projected onto the pillars and with the reflection from the water in the ditches a cathedral-like ambiance is generated. The art event symbolizes ‘the breath of the Earth. The pace of the breath is controlled by a computer to be synchronized with the results of the Summit.

3. The Pulse of the Earth on the Mountain at the Bella Center. A light installation to illuminate the big building ‘The Mountain’ in a slowly pulsating red light. The building is a huge picture (30 x 150 m) of Mount Everest. The illumination of The Mountain symbolizes the hastily melting glaciers. The light is synchronized with the pulsation on the metro.

4. Refugees in Water – at the Bella Center. A group of sculptures in human size are placed in the water ditches under the metro. They are illuminated with the pulsating red light.

5. The Messenger at the Bella Center metro station. A 4 meters high bronze sculpture depicting ‘a messenger’ with a mythical radiation. Two integrated light displays count up the number of refugees and the CO₂ emission throughout the summit.

6. ‘Freedom to Pollute’ on the Amager Fælled. A 6 meters high replica of the Statue of Liberty emitting smoke from the torch. It is placed on ‘the little mountain’ at the center of the area. It is strongly illuminated, so it can be seen from big parts of Amager and Copenhagen. The sculpture symbolizes the western world’s over consumption and our reluctance to change this.

7. Wandering Refugees on the area ‘Amager Fælled’. The sculptures are 10 meters high with copper faces and long African women’s costumes in shrill colors. Put up on the savannah-like area they remind of female refugees in Sudan. The sculptures, illuminated by a strong white light, symbolize the 200 million climate refugees that are expected to come within the next 40 years.

Description of each of the art events

The 7-meters line

Site and duration of exhibition: Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark and abroad - from November 13^th to December 19^th

An art installation blinking ‘Red alarm – the ice is melting!’

At various places in Copenhagen and in other cities in Denmark and abroad a line of blinking red LED lamps is placed at 7 meters above mean sea level. The line is a visualization of the rise of the sea level that will be the result if all the ice in Greenland melts. This may take hundreds of years, but the line to highlight, that huge areas on the earth will be uninhabitable in the future due to climate change. Humanity will face immeasurable challenges to cope with the 200 million climate refugees that the UN Climate Panel expects during the coming 40 years.

The project has the ambition that the red blinking lights will be the very symbol of a climate alarm, so that this quit visual signal will be used by plenty of people thinking that the politicians do not do enough to prevent the climate catastrophe.

The project is among others supported by the Foreign Department, and several secondary schools, continuation schools, environmental initiatives etc. will join the project with their own 7 meters lines.

From December 7^th to December 19^th a 4 km long 7-meters line will be mounted:

• Along the Metro’s ‘higher’ part from the Oerestad Station through the Bella Center to the Sundby Station.

The line can be seen by all participants of the Summit at the Bella Center.

7^th – 19^th December a 7-meters line will be mounted at a length of 20 km in the center of Copenhagen:

• Along the central lakes (Lake Skt. Jørgen, Lake Peblinge and Lake Sortedam)

• Along the green areas to the south and to the north of Vejlands Allé (to the west of the metro)

• On both sides of the canal from the ‘Gasværkshavn’ to ‘Nyholm’

For about every 20 meters a LED lamp will be mounted. The lamps have been designed for the purpose. They are blinking read in the darkness, and during the day they will be charging by a solar cell.

The Pulse of the Earth at the metro

Site and duration of exhibition: The Bella Center metro station - from November 13^th to December 20^th

Lightning installation on concrete construction

The concrete construction with the buttresses carrying the Metro and the water pond are illuminated with red LED light. The light is controlled by a computer that makes the color in the concrete constructions and the water change slowly from red to neutral following a sort of sinus curve, congruent with the ’breath of the Earth’.

The calculation of the breath is made by geologist Bo Holm Jacobsen, who says: ”The strength of the light modulates from the surface of the Earth’s position, i.e. maximum brightness when the surface is up, and minimum brightness, when the surface is down. I have reconstructed the signals, which our seismographs give, namely the speed of the surface of the Earth.”

The intervals are approximately as the breath of a person.

The lightning installations will be beautiful and meditative and give the concrete constructions and the area around the water a whole new aesthetic dimension, and will be experienced by the beholder as a beautiful cathedral-like building, bathed in red.

The lightning installation is an artistic interpretation of the Earth as a living organism.

Interactive breath: the pace of the ‘breath’ will change according to the achievement at the Summit. Like a medical measuring of the heart rate at an intensive care unit, the essential pulsation will be the one of the Earth (Gaia).

We’ll make a sort of a rating of the results of each day’s negotiations. NGO’s observing the negotiations will make their evaluation of the achievements. The rating is then entered to the computer controlling the breath. So the breath can be speeded up by about 30%. Anyway, it will still be perceived as slowly pulsating.

The Pulse of the Earth at the Mountain

Site and duration of exhibition: The building ‘The Mountain’ at the Bella Center metro station - from November 13^th to December 20^th

The lightning installation on the building ‘the Mountain’

The building ’the Mountain’ with Mount Everest is also enlightened with the red pulsating LED light.

The light is controlled by the same computer that controls the lightning installation on the Metro, so that the light switches in parallel. See above.

When Mount Everest, which is pictured on the building, contains very large ice massifs, the red slowly pulsating light will be perceived by the viewer as a beautiful melancholic attention to the fact that the first victims to the climate change will just be the glaciers. In Europe they will disappear within a period of 15 years.

Interactive breath: See above.

Refugees in Water

Site and duration of exhibition: The water ditches at the Bella Center metro station - from November 13^th to December 20^th

Bronze sculptures in water: Plenty of human sculptures will be placed in the water at the Metro. The sculptures are 160 centimeters tall and symbolize that many people will have to flee due to the rising of the water. The sculptures and the water surface illuminated by the red pulsating light will create the background for the sculpture The Messenger described below. See pictures at:

http://www.aidoh.dk/art_and_events/other/stolen/stolenhungerboys-photos.html .

The Messenger

Site and duration of exhibition: The flagging at the Bella Center metro station - from November 13^th to December 20^th

The sculpture The Messenger on the flagging at the metro: The sculpture will be placed below the metro. It’s around 4 meters tall and 2 x 1 meters in the basic interface. It will be placed between the two ’subway tracks’, so you’ll see the sky behind the sculpture when you come out from the metro. The sculpture was originally used for focusing on the debt burden of the poor countries, but is reinterpreted to focus on the state of the Earth (Gaia).

Here too is the sculpture illuminated with the red light, coordinated after the breath of the Earth.

http://sculptures.aidoh.dk/listPhotos.php?&view=list〈=dk&ID=346&photodirID=101&order=2&rpp=60&start=0

Freedom to Pollute

Site and duration of exhibition: The area ‘Amager Fælled’ - from November 13^th to December 20^th

Statue of Liberty: the sculpture Freedom to Pollute is placed on the mountain on the ‘Amager Fælled’. The sculpture is enlightened by a strong white light. It is almost 8 meters tall including the base and can be seen by the passengers in the subway and from a large area on Amager at a distance of many kilometers.

The sculpture Freedom to Pollute is a reminder of the Western World’s immense overconsumption that has caused the current climate crisis.

(see the sculpture at http://www.aidoh.dk/?categoryID=48 and http://sculptures.aidoh.dk/index.html?&view=list〈=uk&ID=249&photodirID=286&order=2&rpp=15&start=0 )

Wandering Refugees

Site and duration of exhibition: The area ‘Amager Fælled’ - from November 13^th to December 20^th

Refugees: 10 meters tall Refugee-sculptures are placed on Fælleden 30 to 50 meters from the intersection by the Bella Center/the subway station.

Every sculpture contains of a 2 meter big copper mask, which is hung up in a mast. Attached to the mask is a 10 meters tall dress in a traditional strong African color. The dress conceals the mast, and flirts 5 meters backward from the sculpture. The sculptures are illuminated from below by strong white light, so they can be seen from big parts of Fælleden.

The installation is originally inspired by the Sudanese female refugees walking through the dessert, and is a beautiful and sad image of refugees. Here will they symbolize the 200 millions of climate refugees that UN’s Panel of Climate Change expect will come in the following 40 years.

http://www.aidoh.dk/?categoryID=67