24 - 27 Sept 2015

Natalie Jeremijenko – Pier 2 Pier

"redesigning our relationship to natural systems is the space race of the 21st Century"

Natalie Jeremijenko – Pier 2 Pier

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist who combines engineering, environmentalism and more to create real-life experiments that enable social change. She is director of the Design Environmental Health Clinic at New York University that prescribes creative health solutions for people with environmental problems. Previously she was on the Visual Arts faculty at UCSD, Faculty of Engineering at Yale University, a visiting professor at Royal College of Art in London, a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Public Understanding of Science at Michigan State University, and a Visiting Global Distinguished Professor at they NYU College of Arts and Sciences. Her doctoral studies include biochemistry, engineering (mechatronics, space-systems and precision engineering), neuroscience and History and Philosophy of Science. For TodaysArt, she has created a newly commissioned, amazing project called “Pier 2 Pier”. Natalie Jeremijenko: “Since Zero, the Shoreline has become ‘unshore-line’. In the Anthropocene we face our own response-ability to inhabit this new liminal space. It is not sufficient to build a pier that only allows access. Pier 2 Pier achieves all the functions of a conventional pier, while reaching into the productive aspects of the aquatic ecosystem. It distills and desalinates water, promotes habitat for mussels and algae and the many organisms they support while improving water quality and biodiversity.” On the Pier Jeremijenko performs her “Mussel Choir”, in which mussels are outfitted with sensors that convert the data that they collect into sound. The behavior of the organisms as a biologically measure of pollution is being used in order to create sound. Local weather and seasons will have influence the Choir’s performances. The songs will map parameters such as water depth to sound pitch, presence of pollutants to sound timbre, and the rate of the opening and closing of mussel shells to sound tempo. The mussels perform like musicians.  

Design team:
Natalie Jeremijenko, Director, xCLINIC, NYU
Michael Kokora, Partner OMA / AMO Hong Kong
Chris van Duijn, Partner OMA / AMO Rotterdam
Craig Stevens, Principal Scientist, Marine Physics, NIWA

 

Date
25 September - 4 October

Module
Works

Venue
Beach

Time
Continuous

Country
INT