David Buckland- Ice Text (2006)

David Buckland led the 2001 Cape FareWell Expedition to Svalbard; scientists, educators, artists, explorers and creatives came together to explore new lines of research and work alongside to create interdisciplinary work based on scientific research to shift the perception of climate change and garter the attention of a larger audience. He created his own artistic practice in response to the expedition titled Ice Text. Buckland projected a series of texts for the expedition ship onto the base of crumbling glaciers. The texts render emotional responses due to the haunting projection in lowlight and somber tone. The ‘short emotive slogans’ focused on the ice blocks engage audiences into the climate emotionality and potential risks. The projection continues to have the projection manipulated though time as the ice melts away creating new contours on the ice blocks, manipulating how the projections lays on the scene. Other ice text projections bleed into the water or evaporate into the sky; disappearing like the ice itself.

‘Ice is alive. […] It has a language that id as clear as words, and understanding it is like dealing with poetry and raw emotion…Filming the demise of an iceberg is both exhilarating and sad. As we watch it sink lower and lower, and finally collapse, our reflection turns towards the implication of the loss of ice.’- D. Buckland

SIGNIFICANCE OF TEXT

The thick black capitalisation of the projection creates immense emergency emphasising the accusatory protest statements almost. The size of the projection wrestles with the size of the glaciers to highlight their immense size and the amount of loss taking place. The presentation of the constructed situations as photographs of the installation bleeds into the send of loos of place, time and experience as the exact presentation of the work could not be recreated due to the glacial melting changing the surface of the ice blocks. The significance of the work is made through the combination of text directly onto the effected areas; if the projection was added in post production, or to the size of the images in a gallery they would not have the gravity and magnitude of sentiment as the site specific installation.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *