“Trigger Points/Tipping Points” at the Venice Biennale, the Boulder Museum and online

Contact: Aviva Rahmani at ghostnets@verizon.net

For further information on all events please go to http://www.ghostnets.com/events2.html.

“Trigger Points/ Tipping Points,” emerged from the virtual collaboration on global warming between artist Aviva Rahmani, based on Vinalhaven Island, Maine and in New York City and Boulder-based scientist Dr. James White. This work was created for “Weather Report,” curated by Lucy Lippard for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), and opened September 14, Boulder, Colorado, with Marda Kirn and EcoArts. The DVD documentation premiered with the international network, cultura21 and was followed by a moderated discussion with Sacha Kagan, social scientist, at the 52nd Venice Biennale, at the Thetis New Arsenal, Venice, Italy, 4:10 PM, September 6, 2007, as part of “The Cultural Dimension of Sustainability; Towards an Ecology of Culture.”

“Trigger Points/ Tipping Points,” models how virtuality can share resources and find solutions to global warming. White and Rahmani began work in February 2007 and dedicated five months to analyzing circumpolar satellite imagery and research data. The edited dvd of their working sessions, in the form of desktop sharing, using webcam, pen tablet, photoshop and ordinary phones addressed how global warming combines with increased population demands for fresh water to change geopolitical relationships world wide. The collaboration studied how global warming is creating hundreds of millions of climate refugees and intensifying deadly conflict zones across the earth, as peoples and other species compete for ever scarcer resources. The three dramatic examples chosen for study were in the trajectories of the Mississippi in relation to New Orleans, the Nile in relation to Darfur and the Ganges in relation to Bangladesh. The greatest obstacle observed to adaptation to the massive changes required to sustain life as we know it, is the accelerated time frame of events. The project’s premise is that one answer to these challenges is in virtual communication systems.

Dr. White, former Chair of the Environmental Studies program at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado and Interim Director of INSTAAR (Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research), Boulder, Colorado, is one of the top half-percentile of most cited climate change scientists in his field of ice core study. Ecological artist Aviva Rahmani’s projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography. Rahmani has taught, lectured and performed internationally, and is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including two from the Nancy H. Gray Foundation for Art in the Environment in 1999 and 2000.

In addition to the installation for “Weather Report,” Aviva Rahmani and Dr. Jim White presented together, with artist Andrea Polli, as part of a panel at the Energy & Environmental Security Initiative (EESI), 2:00 PM Monday, September 17th, 2007, in Boulder.