Andrea Polli
Artist Andrea Polli is currently Professor of Art and Ecology at the University of New Mexico. Her work lies at the intersection of art, science and technology. Her work, which includes “media installation, public interventions, curating and directing art and community projects and writing” focuses on artwork related to environmental science issues. A number of her works use sonification to illustrate and develop systems for understanding storm phenomena and global climate change. This work has involved collaboration with atmospheric scientists from organizations such as the NASA Goddard Institute Climate Research Group in New York City, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and AirNow. By tapping into different areas of research, Polli hopes of offer “new ‘readings’ of data provided by natural systems. She is also interested in participatory media, and attempts to engage with the public through her works through workshops and other activities. Some of Polli’s geosonfications projects include:
- “Sonic Antarctica” (2008)
- “Sonic Antarctica” is a compilation of Antarctic soundscapes Polli recorded during a 2007/2008 National Science Foundation residency in Antarctica. Including natural and industrial field recordings, audifications of scientific data, and interviews with scientists, it is available as an audio CD/mp3 and is presented in Polli’s words as both “a radio broadcast, a live performance” as well as a “sound and visual installation.” The work is meant to draw awareness to the arctic ecosystem’s rapid ecological change and the impacts of this change on the global environment. For more information, go to http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=342
- “Heat and the Heartbeat of the City” (2004)
- “Heat and the Heartbeat of the City” is a project that documents the effects of climate change on New York City’s Central Park through video interviews and sonifications. Using records and model predictions, Central Park’s maximum daily summer temperatures from 1990 to 2080 are “translated into pitch, loudness, and the speed of sounds,” as well as changing visual background colors. The piece is broken up into four approximately seven-minute chunks – the 1990’s, 2020’s, 2050’s, and 2080’s. You can hear the increasingly dramatic and almost sinister sounding differences for yourself at http://archive.turbulence.org/Works/heat/index2.html.
- “Sound-Seeker” (on-going)
- As part of the NYSoundmap project of the New York Society of Acoustic Ecology, Polli’s “Sound-Seeker” is an interactive digital media work that allows a user to explore the sounds of New York City. Using interactive satellite photos on a Google Maps software, a user can zoom, pan, and search for recorded sounds that have been located by participants via GPS. Go to http://www.nysoundmap.org/
You can learn more about Andrea Polli via her website at http://www.andreapolli.com/.
