Can art help us gain a deeper understanding of things we can't see more clearly?
The short answer is: yes.
At the Art for Tomorrow 2024 event (an annual conference organized by The Democracy & Culture Foundation), which took place in June at Palazzo Diedo in Venice with Venipedia as media partner, artist Thijs Biersteker looked at this question in his Lighting Talk (a format by Art for Tomorrow as an extra panel) entitled "From facts to feelings, via Art".
Thijs works with leading scientists on environmental issues, using their data, facts and findings to create art installations that are connected with sensors. This gives us a visual experience of things we can't see, based on science.
Is a fact that climate science could become inaccessible when its contents become less clear to understand. Science communication is often too complex to reach the masses, though many efforts are constantly being made by the scientific community to simplify the message. This slows down the change, so he's started to build a visual art to show that complexity in an easier way.
His work Econtinuum, for example, uses sensors to mimic the tree roots behavior in the museum. This work highlights how powerful a symbiotic relationship in nature can be and teaches us one of the key lessons from a forest ecosystem: we're stronger when we work together.
The massive transparent root networks can monitor things like air quality, humidity, CO2 levels, and volatile organic compounds in the room. They use that data to spark a conversation, just like they would if they were really underground.
The two trees talk to each other about changes in the room’s air and biometric readings, sending electrical signals and sharing nutrients to keep each other balanced. As a fun, interactive touch, you’re invited to get closer and be part of it.
In these two giant transparent root structures, an eco-AI uses room sensors to imitate the smart, symbiotic relationships happening below the forest floor. In collaboration with biologist Stefano Mancuso, it uses the scientific data of tree communication to mimic the electric and chemical chatter of trees.
Symbiosia is another installation by the artist that shows the symbiotic relationship between trees and their environment in real time. It was created in collaboration with professor Stefano Mancuso and its International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
They have developed a calculative data driven system that estimates the real time impact that climate change has on the nature of Paris, generating a tree ring every second, instead of every year, which is displayed on big displays next to the trees.
The artwork captures the immediate effects of daily events, such as traffic congestion leading to an increase in CO2 levels, and droughts caused by rising summer temperatures.
Tree rings can give us important data, like how healthy the tree is and whether there's been an increase in CO2 and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).
Clear examples of how art can crystallise a complex concept, even the more intangible one such as the effects of climate change in nature, condensing beauty, technology, scientific data and visual information into an artwork that people can understand, use and appreciate.
