December 1, 2004
Turbulence Commission: "Heat and the Heartbeat of the City" by Andrea Polli
http://turbulence.org/works/heat
[Needs Quicktime and Flash plugins, headphones or external speakers]

According to the Metropolitan East Coast Assessment maintained by the
Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia
University, New York City will be dramatically impacted by global
warming in the near future. Average temperatures in New York could
increase by one to four degrees fahrenheit by 2030, and up to ten
degrees by 2100. The impacts of these changes on this major metropolitan
area will be dramatic. "Heat and the Heartbeat of the City" is a series
of sonifications (musical compositions created by directly translating
data to sound) that illustrate these changes focusing on the heart of
New York City and one of the city's first locations for climate
monitoring, Central Park. The data sonified is actual data from summers
in the 1990's and projected data for summers in the 2020's, 50's, and
80's using one of the most detailed atmospheric models of any urban
area. As you listen to the compositions, you will travel forward in time
at an accelerated pace and experience an intensification of heat in sound.

"Heat and the Heartbeat of the City" is a 2004 commission of New Radio
and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site.
It was made possible with funding from The Greenwall Foundation.

BIOGRAPHIES

ANDREA POLLI is currently an Associate Professor of Media at Hunter
College in New York City. She has developed interactive media projects
related to perception and cognition, complexity, and human behavior. Her
projects feed into multiple areas of research and her work often offers
new 'readings' of scientific data and other information produced by
natural systems. She currently works in collaboration with
meteorological and environmental scientists to develop systems for
understanding storms and climate through sound.

DR. CYNTHIA ROSENZWEIG is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she is the leader of the
Climate Impacts Group. She is a Senior Research Scientist at the
Columbia University Earth Institute and a Professor of Environmental
Sciences at Barnard College. Dr. Rosenzweig is the Co-Leader of the
Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the Potential
Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (MEC), a study of how New
York City and environs are likely to be affected by global climate
change and how the city can prepare to adapt to changing climate conditions.

MORGAN BARNARD is a visual artist living and working in New York.
Throughout the years Morgan has worked as a music video director,
documentary filmmaker, and video artist. His projects range from video
based music instruments to live video mixing and creating custom
hardware and software for the video performance. Recent projects include
Quadbox, a multi camera video based musical instrument; Float Potion,
live video mixing and programming in collaboration with Jared Lamenzo;
and Queensbridge Windpower, a video documentary in collaboration with
Andrea Polli.

KURT RALSKE is a NYC-based video artist, composer, and programmer. His
work involves the expressive improvisation of both sound and image,
simultaneously and in real-time. He creates his work exclusively with
his own custom software, written in C/C++ and Java. He is also the
author of Auvi, a software environment for creating custom real-time
video programs.

For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org

–
Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
Networked_Performance Blog and Conference: http://turbulence.org/blog