One thing COP26 was not short of was data. Terabytes of data collated from scientists, governments and NGOs was on show in Glasgow, and illustrated the perilous position we are in. Never have we had more information about the state of the planet. Yet sometimes the data that is produced is impenetrable to the general public, a wall of statistics, jargon and acronyms: not ideal when we need everyone to both understand and act on the data we now have regards the climate.
It is a problem that new media artist and designer Refik Anadol wanted to solve. He worked with Google’s Arts & Culture Lab to design a beautiful, interactive website that attempted to answer the question: what would we find if we scanned the Earth for damage?
The result is a remarkable website: the MRI of the Earth, a fusion of AI and striking imagery, and proof of what’s possible when art and data collide. Speaking at the Climate Action Hub at COP26, Anadol talked about the genesis of the project. “What we wanted to do is to understand the numbers, the data that is all around us. We are a studio of 14 people, and we wanted to use data and aesthetics to make the invisible, visible.”
A key part of this is artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. “We work with AI and machine learning, so we can figure out how to use intelligence in a meaningful way, so we can use art as the canvas to tell stories,” he adds. They worked on the project for nearly two years, working with data to create a piece of art that has three fundamental tenets: learn, remember and dream.
When you visit the website, you see these three tenets in action. First, a black screen emblazoned with white text: if the planet was a patient, what action would you take?
Then a spinning planet overlaid with data of the major climate events that have happened over the years, from the 1970 Bhola cyclone in Bangladesh to the Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching that started in 2016.
The site features a database of more than 200 million images – “the largest image archive ever collected for artistic purposes,” says Anadol – and it forms the backbone of a “collective memory” of the Earth’s natural landscape.
The most haunting part of the website is the AI-generated of nature images, a chilling vision of what our shared future may be like unless we tackle the climate crisis. “If we are not careful this will most be likely be our last memories: millions of images in a cold machine’s mind,” Anadol says. “The site interactively travels through the narrative, using social media, collective memories from nature, trying to detach ego from the data.”
The site would not be possible without the great strides AI technology has made in recent years. “In the past five years, AI has had a major impact on our practice with regards to how we use data in a meaningful way so we can connect the past, present and future and use the collected memories of humanity.”
Indeed communication is the heart of this website, and trying to answer the question of how to talk about climate change in a way that is compelling. “As a studio, we are trying to understand how to use data in a different way and how to create a positive language of optimism and understand how data can be used to create impact,” Anadol says.
“As an artist I am inspired by nature, and this is why we use patterns of movements in nature and in big data. I believe that the [things we see] in nature are always inspiration for artists. Like Monet painting water lilies and being inspired by nature is not too different from a [modern] artist using data {instead of a paintbrush].”
This opportunity to present complex information in a new way was showcased in Google Arts & Culture’s previous project about the climate, Heartbeat of the Earth, which saw eight artists create artworks that illustrated the effects of climate change, such as rising sea level and acidifying oceans.
Of course, this ties into the question of how we make complex information available to everyone. “We can’t always find a language that everyone understand,” Anadol says. “Using aesthetics allows easier access. [Our website] is one way, a series of YouTube interviews is another, a social media campaign is another; all of them can lead to action around the data science,” he adds. “Imagine that every single data science point connects around the narrative and we make this a collective study and create an exhibition that travels around the world? People can quickly engage, become interested to read more, and then finally, take action.”