Arctic Ocean-in progress : Adriane Colburn

ADRIANE COLBURN

Arctic Ocean Project- in progress

2008

Mapping is a crucial element in our quest to understand the world by breaking down and analyzing information, a process through which our environment is simultaneously abstracted and better understood.

I am currently working on a project in collaboration with the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/ Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire. At the CCOM-JHC, scientists are mapping the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean, one of the least known and sparsely charted realms on the planet. Up until now, even NASA maps of the surface of mars are more detailed than recent maps of the Arctic Sea Floor.

The Arctic is now at the center of global politics as it is one of the areas most affected by climate change. Scientists predict that there will be ice-free summers in the arctic in as little as twenty years. This fact makes it all the more pertinent that the Arctic also harbors the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas yet has few official international boundaries. The effort to study and map the arctic is rich with both political implications as well as groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

My project will mine this territory using the tools and research of the CCOM-JHC scientific team. Their maps, eerie topographies from a world that has only been remotely seen through the use of sonar sensors and robotic underwater rovers, brings this unknown terrain into view. New data provided by these oceanographic expeditions will form the basis of an extensive visual exploration of this remote world, including the creation of tangible images and artifacts that serve as both an expanded examination of this information and a broader distribution of it. In addition, the CCOM-JHC research will be used to drive the development of a body of artwork that will provide a new platform for further discussion and deeper understanding of the complex political issues associated with Arctic mapping and the tensions associated with geo-political resource economies.

Examples of recent sea floor maps of the Chuckchi Cap from NOAA and the CCOM-JHC

There is an inherent element of abstraction in mapping a real form, such as the sea floor, into the virtual dimensions of digital files and then reconstituting that data back into a solid form, that relates to artistic technique. Through the process of regenerating the arctic floor above sea level, this project will seek to both unveil this hidden landscape, as well as point to a potential modern day land grab that melting ice is spurning. It is a tragic irony that the changes in the arctic, caused largely by petroleum-based fuels, are making way for more access to this same problematic resource; one that has fueled the development of contemporary industrial and post-industrial economies and in the process, demonstrated a profoundly toxic effect to the earth’s climate and its geography.

For the past several years, I have been working on a series of installations and maps that seek to organize and chart changes in the natural and urban landscape. These constructions, made of layers of hand cut paper often shed light on systems that exist below ground or those that are shielded by the passing of time. I map out these “inaccessible” places, by systemizing information, based on landscapes or history to create artworks that provide both concrete information and imaginative interpretations within an aesthetic framework. The outcome of my research, mirrors the nature of maps as visual systems, where extensive detail is collated into a vast field of form. My work utilizes 3-D systems of representation, occupying space, yet it maintains the fragility of drawing rather than the spatial solidity of sculpture or model-making. My ongoing research has involved developing experimental techniques for engineering paper to meet the needs of this new kind of three-dimensional mapping.

The new work will be an installation that models an area of the Chuckchi Cap, a resource rich section of the Arctic sea floor that the United States will lay claim to under the unratified United Nations charter, “The Law of the Sea”. The installation will be a 3-D topography constructed by translating CCOM-JHC balthymetric data into flattened digital prints that will be patterned and pieced together to reform the seabed contours into 3 dimensions.