Ice laboratory is the exhibition in the series of science-art projects uniting the ideas of contemporary artists, glaciologists, oceanologists and anthropologists, planned by Laboratoria Art&Science.

“In these projects we are trying to understand what is happening to the planet, and hence to us all. What sort of new ways can be opened to us by the Arctic and Antarctic Regions, which are among the most beautiful and inaccessible places on the Earth? Ice is an amazing material, the memory of millennia is stored in it, thus, exploring it, we can understand the mysteries of the planet formation and our future depends on how we consider ice at present”

Daria Parkhomenko, the exhibition curator and the founder of Laboratoria Art&Science

Nowadays the issue of climate change, loss of glaciers and ice cover is under active discussion; these factors will have their social and economic consequences, will require conscientious attitude towards the nature, combined efforts and adaptation to new circumstances.

The ice as one of the most fragile elements of the environment indicates changes in the nature and compels us to act with especially carefully.

Laboratoria uses research method: the artists create artworks together with the scientists, use actual field evidence, take part in scientific expeditions, set up experiments with ephemeral ice substances. Most of the artworks are new projects, created specially for this exhibition.

THE EXHIBITION CONSISTS OF THREE SECTIONS:

SECTION 1: Implementation scientific and artistic experiments and research, exploring hidden amazing qualities of ice

In the project SGM Iceberg-Probe German artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis enacts a trip into the depths of a subterranean iceberg. In the courtyard of Laboratoria she organized an observation station, where the user can drop a measuring probe on a line into a specially drilled borehole in real time, exploring wonderful realities and structure of ice.

::vtol:: has created Cryophone, an algorithmic organ — a self-made synthesizer, generating music with the help of the ice, chemical reactions and natural laws. This interactive musical instrument is equipped with temperature and vibration sensors and gas analyzer, by means of which the processes occurring in the carbon-dioxide ice in the warm environment are transformed into sound.

Marko Peljhan and Matthew Biederman have designed a portable research observation station CDPDU that collects the field data from the Earth satellites in real time, monitors the current state of ice and the snow cover of the Earth, temperature of the ocean, currents speed, radiation and other parameters.

Laboratory method and new technologies are used by Japanese artist Shiro Takatani in his media-installation Ice core. Laboratoria will present an excavation of ice from the depth of 2503 meters, that the artist and the scientists made at the station Dome Fuji in Antarctica. This excavation stores information about 700 000-year history of the planet.

SECTION 2: Exploration of ice as a factor of sociopolitical and economical transformation of the society

The geopolitical vector of “ice regions” exploration is presented in Olga Kisseleva’s work The Arctic Conquistadors. She has created a computer program — the map of contemporary Arctic, comparing the interests of oil and energy companies with the epoch of great conquests.

Leonid Tishkov will present the autobiographical Arcticdiaries created in the course of his journey to Spitzbergen, where he went in 2010 on an ancient schooner together with Cape Farewell expedition investigating climate change. The primeval beauty of the region compelled the artist to make an active stand for the liberation of Arctic from the invasion of industrial corporations.

SECTION 3: Poeticize the images of ice landscapes, transformation of exclusive experience of acquaintance with immense polar spaces into artistic and architectural objects

In the course of his Antarctic expedition the artist and submariner Alexander Ponomarev witnessed extraordinary phenomena – disappearing mirages. This induced him to develop the project Architecture of mirages in cooperation with Alexey Kozyr. These museum ships can react to the changes in the environment, float from one continent to another, change their position from vertical to horizontal like a fishing buoy.

In 2013 Laboratoria engaged Natalia Zintsova in a glaciological expedition to the vicinity of the Mount Elbrus. This experience inspired the artist to create an installation made of tracks: together with alpinists and glaciologists she creates a generalized image of the mount, based on the real stories of ascending, discoveries and itineraries.

The project was realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.