THE ICE MATTER, A Threshold State
IRREVERSIBLE: Death by the Drip
A sound-video installation based on the field recordings in the Vatnajökull Ice Cap, Iceland.
With the support of University Paris 8 and the Hornafjörður Research Center (University of Iceland).
Þorvarður Árnason, PhD, Director of Hornafjörður Research Center, is our indefectible guide and counsellor on the Breiðamerkurjökull and Flaajökull outlet glaciers, at the centre of our recordings.
Based on scientific documentation, this sound-video installation aims to support the interpretation of the glaciers’ life as a matter of truth, and to raise awareness about the irreversible processes leading to their rapid death.
— Mariana Ungureanu (Composer, PhD fellow at University Paris 8) – music composition & dramaturgy,
— Pétur F. Kjærnested (Video artist, Reykjavik) – original video,
— Martin Lucas (Architect, Paris) – photography and editing.
Dramaturgy
—Wounds – 0 min,
— From Drip to the Torrent – 4 min 30 sec,
— Silent Drama – 7 min 10 sec,
— Bleeding – 8 min 44 sec,
Problematic
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- “Irreversible”, is a sound-vidéo installation where the life and death of the glaciers are center stage.
- It calls into question the domination of humans on the planet’s biotopes.
- It shows the ecological threat that constitutes our developed consumerist society to the fragile living biosystems.
This is the first step in the art-science-environment project I develop on the Vatnajökull Ice Cap, Iceland, in collaboration with the Hornafjõrdur Research Center (University of Iceland).
Concept
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A performance of ice (in the way of an artist’s performance),
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A radical exercise that shows the remission of the ice in millennial glaciers as bleeding human flesh. The raw matter of ice is exposed in the manner of a body that suffers, which ends up bleeding continuously,
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An eventful art installation, not just a source of contemplation,
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The message is conveyed by the filed recordings but also by the dramaturgy,
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– The sociological dimension is essential and it’s put forward. It aims to create space in our lives for the ice, to give it a voice.
Demands to the audience
We aim to :
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Drive the public’s attention from pure information to emotion, with the hope to arouse astonishment,
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Take people out of their comfort zone, to disturb them,
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Question their way of life and their awareness of the state of the nature which surrounds us,
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Confront them with the reality of the biospheres suffering around us,
- Criticize our lives which often evolve around very egotistical pleasures, where the nature’s condition has no consideration.
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The seriousness of the documented events of the Ice Life demands that the proclaimed ecological commitments of our governments must be put into practice by means of effective actions.