Northern Spark at B-Lectric festival
“. . . winter [is] a defining key to our cultural imagination, one that must be cherished even as its existence is threatened by global climate change.”
B-Lectric
Northern Lights.mn and Uptown’s French bistro, Barbette, are teaming up to host B-Lectric, a winter celebration of art and light this January. B-Lectric is proudly a part ofThe Great Northern festival, 10 days of signature events and new programming in the Twin Cities. Showcasing the North at its wintry best, this collaborative festival aims to give residents and visitors a reason to get outside, get active, and enjoy the incredible winter season.
Northern Lights.mn sees winter as a defining key to our cultural imagination, one that must be cherished even as its existence is threatened by global climate change. For B-Lectric, Northern Lights will construct custom ice walls that at sunset will become projection screens for a variety of light-based projects. Highlights include Joshua McGarvey’s Ice Fall-Feel the Change, which allows audiences to feel glaciers calving as they lean back into sound beds, and a documentary compilation by local curator Graci Horne, which will showcase new footage from the ongoing pipeline resistance at Standing Rock, North Dakota. In addition, Art Shanty Projects will transform surfaces into creative community spaces that are part art gallery and part social experiment. For B-Lectric, they will aim to engage participants in story writing with Sesa-station Story Shanty, encourage free-spirited dancing with The Dance Shanty, and connect writers and readers of literature to share performances with the Vehicle of Expression.
To round out the afternoon, DJ sets from Jake Rudh, performances from Infiammati Fire Circus, and mini obstacle courses designed by Sloppy Loppet will keep guests entertained. Barbette will provide a menu of oysters and kafta, along with a full bar featuring hot cocktails and Shotskis available for purchase. Fire pits and a yeti will be scattered throughout the event, keeping guests warm.
Joshua McGarvey
Ice Fall – Feel the Change, 2016
Video projection and sound beds
When glaciers calve, hundred thousand ton icebergs fall hundreds of feet into the sea while tourists watch from their boats. Ice Fall – Feel The Change is a sensory experience that allows you to feel the process of calving lying against a bed of sound.
Joshua McGarvey is an artist living and working in Minneapolis. He holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and was a 2016 Art(ists)s On The Verge fellow.
NASA Climate Change Data Visualizations
Some of the most important research on the state of the planet is performed by NASA. [At least it used to be.] This is a selection of videos and animations different NASA entities have created over the past several years. For more information see https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Record-Breaking Climate Trends 2016. Rising Temperatures and Shrinking Sea Ice.
Aqua/AIRS Carbon Dioxide with Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Overlaid. A NASA/university study of the first-ever global satellite maps of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has revealed new information on how this key greenhouse gas linked to climate change is distributed and moves around our world.
A Year In The Life Of Earth’s CO2. An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.
Carbon Dioxide Sources From a High-Resolution Climate Model. Animation of carbon dioxide released from two different sources: fires (biomass burning) and massive urban centers known as megacities. The model is based on real emission data and is then set to run so that scientists can observe how the greenhouse gas behaves once it has been emitted.
Heating Up. The temperature changes shown here are relative to the average temperatures observed from 1971-2000.
Megadrought. Megadroughts have more than an 80 percent likelihood of occurring by the end of the century under the high emissions scenario.
The Ocean – a driving force for Weather and Climate. Without the ocean, our planet would be uninhabitable. This animation helps to convey the importance of Earth’s oceanic processes as one component of Earth’s interrelated systems.
Arctic Sea Ice from January 1, 2013 to September 10, 2016. Every summer the Arctic ice cap melts down to what scientists call its “minimum” before colder weather begins to cause ice cover to increase. The first six months of 2016 have been the warmest first half of any year in our recorded history of surface temperature (which go back to 1880).
Annual Arctic Sea Ice Minimum 1979-2015 with Area Graph. An animation of the annual Arctic sea ice minimum with a graph overlay showing the area of the minimum sea ice in millions of square kilometers.
Does What Happens in the Arctic Stay in the Arctic?. Ice albedo feedback.
How Climate Warming Stacks Up. Skeptics of manmade climate change offer various natural causes to explain why the Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. But can these account for the planet’s rising temperature? Watch to see how much different factors, both natural and industrial, contribute to global warming, based on findings from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
No Dakota Access Pipeline, No Pipelines Period
Curated by Graci Horne, No Dakota Access Pipeline, No Pipelines Period is a collection of images and videos from indigenous artists: Michelle Latimer, Ben-Alex Dupris, Nikila Badua, Myron Dewey, and Graci Horne of the Oceti Sakowin (Oh-Cheti Shock-oh-wee) Camp and frontlines on the Standing Rock Dakota, Lakota, Nakota reservation.
Graci Horne, Black Elk’s Vision, 2016
Black Elk’s Vision of the sacred hoop broken was to show his people when it broke and how it could be mended. The stills and poem are imagery of how we are mending as a Nation.
Poem by He Sapa Win/ Black Hills Woman/ Paula Horne (Mother)
Photos by Mato Hezi Win/ Yellow Hair Bear Woman/ Graci Horne (Daughter)
Michelle Latimer, Nimmikaage, 2016
Images of the natural world alternate with archival footage of Indigenous women asked to perform in traditional roles for an audience.
Ben-Alex Dupris
Nikila Badua
Myron Dewey
Grace Horne is a curator who was born and raised in Minnesota. Her bands are the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota people and Hunkpapa Lakota/Dakota people.
Miko Simmons
Atavism II, 2017
Single channel video
Ancestral voices guide us through the mists of time to reflect a deeper understanding of our relationship to Earth’s life sustaining interconnection between water, spirit, and self evident truths, thereby exposing our celestial amnesia of the exchange of natural beauty for disconnected progress. An atavistic journey that calls us to inner reflection, contemplation, and ultimately healing the planet.
Miko Simmons is an international award-winning multimedia artist,animator, and composer educated in physics and art, who has been blurring the lines between art and technology, theater and cinema, music and visuals, media and medium, for more than 15 years.
Wapikoni Mobile
Mobile studios fully equipped with cutting-edge technology that “travels to” First Nations communities and works with Aboriginal youth to make films that reflect their reality and culture. 32 communities from 10 different nations visited in Canada. 25 communities from 10 different nations visited in the rest of the world.
Inuk Hunter (Le Chasseur Inuk), 2016
Film directed by George Annanack
4 min 5 sec
Kuujjuaq, 2016
Film directed by Sammy Gadbois
4 min 54 sec
A video essay about the perspective of a teenager on his hometown.
Kupanishkueu, 2016
Film by Mélodie Jourdain-Michel
4 min 37 sec
By drawing a parallel between the life of her great-grandmother and hers, the director says in this documentary essay how she is inspired by the strength and courage of her ancestor Kupanishkueu.
Eshi Mishkutshipanit (Lifestyle Changes), 2013
Film by Nemnemiss McKenzie
5 min 9 sec
Through images of traditional snowshoes Gregory Ambroise shows life as it was long ago, in contrast to the contemporary way of living.
Finding the Light, 2013
Film by Emilio Wawatie, Raymond Caplin, Shaynah Decontie Thusky
4 min 1 sec
Three indigenous teenagers from Québec journey to Scandinavia and discover many similarities between their culture and the Sami culture of Finland.
I’m Beginning to Miss You, 2013
Film by Sakay Ottawa
3 min 23 sec
Sakay shares through a poetic and sensitive testimony, the sudden disappearance of his brother.
Marina Zurkow
Slurb, 2009
Single-channel HD animation, color, sound)
17 min 42 sec
The animated, carnivalesque tailgate party of Slurb loops and stutters like a vinyl record stuck in a groove. Slurb––a word that collapses “slum” and “suburb”––encapsulates a dreamy ode to the rise of slime, a watery future in which jellyfish have dominion.
Hydrocarbons, 2012
Single-channel animation, color, sound
2 min 32 sec
Extracting and manipulating a clip from “The Inside Story of Modern Gasoline” an industrial film (1949), endless chains of anthropomorphized hydrocarbon molecules dance until they blot out the screen. Hydrocarbon chains are the base material for all plastics. They know not what they become, they simply proliferate.
The Poster Children, 2007
Single-channel version of 4-channel video animation, color, silent
9 min
Part of a series of animated paintings whose themes circulate around apocalyptic fantasies of the deluge and climate change, of water, ice, animals, and people.
The Thirsty Bird, 2012
Animation, black and white, silent
5 min 12 sec
The movement of a pump jack (known colloquially as a “thirsty bird”), and a public water fountain are synchronized in a delicate dance. As the pump pulls oil upward, the water fountain spurts water. An array of archetypal individuals emerge in endless succession to drink from the fountain.
Marina Zurkow is a media artist focused on near-impossible nature and culture intersections. She uses life science, materials, and technologies—including food, software, clay, animation, mycelium, and petrochemicals—to foster intimate connections between people and non-human agents.
WHERE: Outside at Barbette 1600 W Lake Street Minneapolis, MN
DATE: Sunday, January 29
TIME: 4:30 – 9:30pm (Projections begin at 5:30pm)
COST: Free
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