Music / climate change
Music from artist and Massive Attack producer highlights effects of climate change
A newly-released piece of music from a Bristol artist has been made using NASA data to demonstrate the effects of climate change on the planet.
James Wheale is an artist and innovation specialist who has been supported by Arts Council England to research making music with climate change data.
His goal is to allow audiences to feel the story of a dataset. Nearly all critical climate change research data sits in the public domain but these large datasets are difficult to navigate and understand. By using the data to ‘corrupt’ the music, listeners can hear the change over time, helping audiences to make emotional sense of the data.
is needed now More than ever
All Hands focuses on the increase in global temperatures 1960-2020, taking information from NASA’s vital signs project, a website with key datasets on the planets health.
In just those 50 years, natural disasters have increased tenfold. The track is 120bpm, which means each beat is a month and 50 years takes exactly five minutes.
The track features Paksie Vernon on vocals. James has been mentored by Stew Jackson (producer and co-writer for Massive Attack) during the project, and been supported by Business West, Bristol24/7, Arts Council England and scientists from the University of Bristol.
The video features footage taken by Matt ‘Bjerregaard’ Walsh (@VisualPersist) a videographer, drone operator and biodiversity scientist who is a senior consultant of UN FAO fisheries and aquaculture division. The footage shows the Philippines during 2007-2019 after a series of hurricanes.
Matt helped coordinate the distribution of aid to remote and/or cutoff communities through his organisation Reefscan, and documented his experience. Reefscan helps protect marine biodiversity, develops cutting edge marine biodiversity technology and protects local livelihoods. He kindly donated the footage to help contextualise the human impact of the climate emergency. (https://reefscan.org/ and you can follow matt at @visualpersist)
James is working on a series of tracks exploring different data sets and will be releasing the next track, about natural disasters, on 1/12/2021. You can follow james @thewhealejames on instagram. for updates.
All Hands is available to stream on Spotify, apple music and most other platforms now.
Main image courtesy of NASA/James Wheale
Read more: Why Bristol24/7 wants to employ a dedicated Climate Change Editor
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