Bedrock is an exhibit, bridging a scientific exploration of earth’s past with an immersive multimedia content providing an entry point into the curiosities and complexities of our changing planet.
Bedrock grew from the research of and conversations with glaciologist Benjamin Keisling. His research involves examining sediments from beneath the Greenland ice sheet, which speak of times when the ice sheet was absent.
Integrated together, the arts with the science of data visualization create avenues for pragmatic interdisciplinary exploration of remote areas of our earth, both far and cold, changes that can be seen only from space or from samples miles below the ice and time scales that span daily glacier melt to tracking the ice back 100,000 years.
Bedrock on multi-panel display 22′ x 9′.
The work melds content such as: visualizations of a sediment core from the Camp Century drill site in Greenland; a photographs of a fossilized seed pulled from a sediment core; fused glass samples and images, visual representations of ice and sediment cores; and much more. The visualization above shows a CT scan of a core section located two miles beneath the ice sheet surface bordering on the bedrock. Examining cores samples close to the bedrock is one means scientists use to gain knowledge on Greenland’s history and predict its future.
Modeling Greenland’s ice sheet coverage. Model – B. Keisling, UTIG. Visualization – G. Abram, F. Samsel.
This visualization is one of a large ensemble computer model runs, plotting Greenland’s past ice sheet cover under different initial conditions. By identifying which model runs show conditions similar to the properties in the core samples help scientists build a clearer understanding of Greenland’s past which in turn provides information about it’s future.
Predictive climate visualization employ advanced computing, big data, high-fidelity physics based simulations to explore and communicate factual analysis of our planet. Here, we weave the digital presentation we weave the scientific models with an artistic vocabulary tuned to touch our human spirit.
Details from the fused glass components of the exhibit, reflecting the ice cores and the histories they record.
Traces of pollen, tree bark, and geochemical memories of sunlight reveal a thriving ecosystem in a place now covered an ice sheet two miles thick. The ice itself records fluctuations in climate over the last one hundred thousand years, caused by changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun, which drove the ice sheet to retreat and advance. Near the ice surface, this record is well-ordered, like the numbered pages of a book or the rings of a tree, each one older than the last. But here at the bottom, the fluid nature of ice is enhanced by the weight above, causing the ice to fold and heave, creating a complex puzzle of the history. Over time, this same weight causes the crust of the Earth itself to flex by hundreds of meters as the ice changes thickness. Keisling uses these observations as constraints on three-dimensional numerical models of the ice sheet that can tell us how much global sea level rose when the ice last waned.
The digital presentation is a weaving of the scientific models with an artistic vocabulary speaking the the strength, fragility and diversity within the ice.
Seeking to tap our need for touch and interaction with our environment, the digital presentation is accompanied by physical objects and references to the digital content. one voice speaking to the fragility and changing nature of that which we often view as permanent. Multi-sensory experiences reflect back to a time when storytelling, gatherings involving dance, music and costumes created a connection to the challenges of the time. Here the physical objects, made of glass and clay, both fragile and strong, present an entry point abck into our physical world while reflecting the imagery representing the ice and sediment imagery within the work.
Touchable glass samples illustrating some of the ice configurations found within ice cores.