Andrea Polli

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Andrea Polli
Andrea Polli 2013 Particle Falls 056.JPG
Opening of Particle Falls, 2013
Born1968 (age 5455)
EducationMaster of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago; PhD in computing, University of Plymouth, UK.
Notable workAtmospherics/Weather Works, Heat and the Heartbeat of the City, N.Particle Falls
Movement Environmental art
AwardsFulbright (2011), UNESCO Digital Arts Award (2003)
Website http://www.andreapolli.com/

Andrea Polli (born 1968) is an environmental artist and writer. [1] Polli blends art and science to create widely varied media and technology artworks related to environmental issues. [2] Her works are presented in various forms, she uses interactive websites, digital broadcasting, mobile applications, and performances, which allows her to reach a wider audience. [3]

Contents

Her work has appeared widely in over one hundred exhibitions and performances both nationally and internationally including the Whitney Museum of American Art Artport [4] and the Field Museum of Natural History. [5] [6] She has received numerous grants, residencies, including a residency at Eyebeam, [7] [8] and awards including the Fulbright Specialist Program (2011) [9] and the UNESCO Digital Arts Award (2003). [1] She is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Ecology at the University of New Mexico. [10]

Education

Polli has a Master of Fine Arts in time arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has a PhD in computing, communications and electronics from the University of Plymouth, UK. [11]

As an educator, Polli has developed new media programs at Robert Morris College and Columbia College in Chicago. She was voted 2000/2001 Teacher of the Year at Columbia in recognition of her work connecting students to the wider community through collaborative projects. From 2005 to 2008 she served as the director of the Integrated Media Arts Masters of Fine Arts Program at Hunter College in New York City. She later became an associate professor of Art and Ecology with appointments in the College of Fine Arts and School of Engineering at the University of New Mexico, where she directs the Social Media Workgroup, a lab at the University's Center for Advanced Research Computing. [10]

Work

Sonification

Polli works with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm and climate through sound. She began collaborating with atmospheric scientists on sound and data sonification projects in 1999, and has worked with NASA's Goddard Institute Climate Research Group in New York City and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her New York installation Atmospherics/Weather Works was a spatialized sonification that used highly detailed models to recreate the sound of two historic east coast storms: the presidents’ Day Snowstorm of 1979 and Hurricane Bob in 1991. In 2007/2008 she spent seven weeks in Antarctica on a National Science Foundation funded project, collaborating with artist Tia Kramer, who was working as a communications operator at McMurdo Station, and other scientists. [12] [13] The sounds she recorded there included water pouring off a glacier and wind whipping through the valleys. Heat and the Heartbeat of the City is a series of sonifications of actual and projected climate in Central Park. [14] N. (pronounced n-point), created in collaboration with Joe Gilmore, is a real-time multi-channel sonification and visualization of weather in the Arctic. [15]

Light installation

External videos
Wilma Theatre 2013 Particle Falls 004.JPG
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg "I was interested in the materiality of the wind and the air.", Andrea Polli, Science History Institute

Polli has also experimented with the visualization of air. Particle Falls is a light installation that displayed air quality information in real time, using a nephelometer to sample particulate matter in air from a city street, and projecting changing light patterns every 15 seconds onto the wall of Philadelphia's Wilma Theater. [16]

“Philadelphia has come a long way in improving the quality of the air we breathe, but our work isn't done. Particle Falls makes it possible to see—in real time and vivid color—the challenges we continue to face." Thomas Huynh, director, Air Management Services, City of Philadelphia. [17]

Experimental architecture

Polli's proposed Queensbridge Wind Power Project would incorporate wind turbines into a bridge's structure to recreate aspects of its original design as well as producing energy to light the bridge and neighboring areas. [18]

Polli worked in collaboration with Rod Gdovic of WindStax, a Pittsburgh-based wind turbine manufacturer, on Energy Flow, an installation with 27,000 multicolored LED lights positioned along the Rachel Carson Bridge in Pittsburgh, PA. The vertical cables of the bridge show a real-time visualization of wind speed and direction captured by a weather station located on the bridge. The electricity that powers Energy Flow is generated by sixteen wind turbines attached to the catenary arches of the bridge. [19] Energy Flow uses data visualization to make people aware of changes in the environment. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anemometer</span> Instrument for measuring wind speed

In meteorology, an anemometer is a device that measures wind speed and direction. It is a common instrument used in weather stations. The earliest known description of an anemometer was by Italian architect and author Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in 1450.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wind power</span> Electrical power generation from wind

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tidal power</span> Technology to convert the energy from tides into useful forms of power

Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonification</span>

Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data. Auditory perception has advantages in temporal, spatial, amplitude, and frequency resolution that open possibilities as an alternative or complement to visualization techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planetary boundary layer</span> Lowest part of the atmosphere directly influenced by contact with the planetary surface

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental art</span> Genre of art engaging nature and ecology

Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes and phenomena in relationship to social concerns. Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions around the world as the social and cultural aspects of climate change come to the forefront.

WAsP is a Windows program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and energy yields from wind turbines and wind farms. An application of the software is determining good locations to develop wind farms.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental impact of wind power</span>

The environmental impact of electricity generation from wind power is minor when compared to that of fossil fuel power. Wind turbines have some of the lowest global warming potential per unit of electricity generated: far less greenhouse gas is emitted than for the average unit of electricity, so wind power helps limit climate change. Wind power consumes no fuel, and emits no air pollution, unlike fossil fuel power sources. The energy consumed to manufacture and transport the materials used to build a wind power plant is equal to the new energy produced by the plant within a few months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wind turbine</span> Machine that converts wind energy into electrical energy

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aaron Koblin</span> American digital media artist

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Ecological art is an art genre and artistic practice that seeks to preserve, remediate and/or vitalize the life forms, resources and ecology of Earth. Ecological art practitioners do this by applying the principles of ecosystems to living species and their habitats throughout the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including wilderness, rural, suburban and urban locations. Ecological art is a distinct genre from Environmental art in that it involves functional ecological systems-restoration, as well as socially engaged, activist, community-based interventions. Ecological art also addresses politics, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics as they impact the conditions of ecosystems. Ecological art practitioners include artists, scientists, philosophers and activists who often collaborate on restoration, remediation and public awareness projects.

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References

  1. 1 2 "New WVU exhibitions feature Andrea Polli, Deem artists". West Virginia University. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  2. "Andrea Polli". Gruenrekorder. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  3. "Polli, Andrea, "Artistic Climate", NEA".
  4. "Soundwalk on the High Line". Whitney Museum of American Art. 28 May 2010. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  5. Verdon, Michael (3 December 2011). "Margaret Cogswell". AVT 101 – Artist Research. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  6. "Art Exhibit Melting Ice / A Hot Topic: Envisioning Change will travel to Monaco". United Nations Environment Programme. 6 February 2008. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  7. "Andrea Polli | eyebeam.org". www.eyebeam.org. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  8. "The Artistic Climate | NEA". www.arts.gov. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  9. "US Specialist Programme Alumni". Fulbright New Zealand. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  10. 1 2 Polli, Andrea. "Andrea Polli". UNM College of Fine Arts. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  11. Polli, Andrea. "Andrea Polli" . Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  12. Polli, Andrea. "Ground Truth: Monitoring and Measuring the Social Geography of Global Climate Change". S&F Online (Scholar and Feminist Journal). Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  13. Rejcek, Peter (1 February 2008). "The art of sound Andrea Polli uses sonification to translate Antarctic science into an acoustic experience". Antarctic Sun. Retrieved 31 January 2011.
  14. Polli, Andrea. "Heat and the Heartbeat of the City Central Park Climate Change in Sound". LAND VIEWS. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  15. "Motohiko Odani, Joe Gilmore and Andrea Polli Lovebytes Exhibition 13 April – 18 June 2005". Site Gallery. Archived from the original on 4 February 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  16. English, Taunya (26 September 2013). "Pollution and light dance on the side of the Wilma Theater". WHYY newsworks. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
  17. "Particle Falls: Public Art by Andrea Polli". Science History Institute. 22 July 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  18. Polli, Andrea. "The Queensbridge Wind Power Project" . Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  19. ""Energy Flow" Lighting on the Rachel Carson Bridge".
  20. Waltz, Amanda (10 January 2017). "Environmental artist Andrea Polli brings energy use to light with workshops". NEXTpittsburgh. Retrieved 21 July 2019.