Antarctic Heart Digital Image
Art and Science Collaborations, ASCI. Digital '01 Exhibition, Technology Gallery, Hall of Science, New York.
My intention with the Antarctic Residency was to make a video and sculpture installation, exploring the contrast between the vast Antarctic continent and a micro-organism, diatoms, at the beginning of the food chain, that survive the harsh Antarctic winters. My challenge was to combine art and science, to create sculpture that was based on the images of exquisite and minute algae, to draw attention to their importance and to video the locations where they have been found to survive. Scientists I met during the delayed flights and while on field trips from Scott Base were enthusiastic about my focus and onward communication about diatoms, and shared information readily.
'We came to probe the Antarctic Mystery, to reduce this land in terms of science, but there is always the indefinable which holds aloof yet which rivets our souls.' Douglas Mawson
'The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science' Albert Einstein
Ice Images: Lake Vanda, Dry Valleys, Antarctica
