Posted on 06/11/2007 5:42:13 AM PDT by Daffynition
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters Life!) - The creaking and splashing sounds of Europe's largest glacier slipping into an ocean grave are just a phone call away now that an artist has installed a microphone in its surrounding waters.
Glaswegian artist Katie Paterson was moved to set up the line after hallucinating about Iceland's giant Vatnajokull glacier during a bout of fever.
The link encourages people to connect emotionally with the glacier, she told Reuters from her tent on the Icelandic shoreline.
"It is really poetic: a river of ice slowly disintegrating, quite discreetly, quite invisibly. Sheets of ice are constantly slipping off, huge bits cracking, moving very slowly.
"It is sad to see a vanishing world."
Paterson, a final year student at Slade School of Art in London, decided to use the phone line after fever-induced hallucinations during a previous trip to Iceland.
The 25-year-old imagined that the liters of water she drank during recovery were making her feel part of the nearby glacier which supplied the water.
Climate change is having a damaging affect on Vatnajokull but the project is more about the glacier's grandeur slipping away, she said.
With the help of sponsors, Virgin Mobile and Dolphinear, Paterson was able to drop a hydrophone into the icy lagoon where the glacier is disappearing and pick up the sounds.
The waterproof microphone is linked to a phone and amplifier housed in a tent on land.
The work, entitled "Vatnajokull (the sound of)", will continue until June 13.
Only one caller at a time can get through, which was deliberate so people can have a "one-to-one beautiful and intimate moment" with the glacier, she said.
Calls to the number, 07758 225698, are charged at international rates.
Glaswegian artist Katie Paterson shown in this undated photo handout. The creaking and splashing sounds of Europe's largest glacier slipping into its icy ocean grave are just a phone call away after an artist installed a microphone in its surrounding waters.
REUTERS/Handout
Who is funding this freak?
The glacier is not alive. It's a river of ice, for God's sake.
There’s a fine line between art and sheer stupidity.
Sponsors, Virgin Mobile and Dolphinear.
'Nuff said.
NPR had a story this morning featuring an ecologist from New Zealand who was terribly upset. It seems that rising sea levels (?) have changed ocean currents and now masses of squid are farther off shore than usual. This is a crisis, because a lot of baby birds need to eat squid, but the parent birds can no longer fly far enough to get to the squid. So the babies are starving!!!!
Mr. Ecologist seems to have trouble with the balance of nature: either squid will die, or birds will die. But somebody's going to die. That's nature. I guess he just likes fuzzy baby birds better.
It's pathetic that science is handled at this level.
Only it doesn't seem that they hold the whole world accountible - not China certainly - whose pollution is so bad it can be seen from satellite.
So what is the glacier saying?
“I’m melting, I’m melting, help me I’m meltinnggggggggg!”
Scrappleface? Onion? Iowahawk? This is a joke, right?
And liters of pure (bottled) water she drank.
$10 says Ecstasy.
The 25-year-old imagined that the liters of water she drank during recovery were making her feel part of the nearby glacier which supplied the water.<<
This smacks of cannibalism.
REACH OUT
REACH OUT AND TOUCH... nothing...
They've wised up and realized that just 30 years ago they were warning of a looming Ice Age.
The new PC term is "climate change" so up or down they can claim they were "right".
“So what is the glacier saying?”
Can you hear me now?
Press 1 for English
Indulgence bordering on decadence...
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