Announcing The New Real Observatory & AWEN at COP26
At the time of COP26 we celebrate hundreds of transformative AWEN journeys with an evocative new documentary film. We are also excited to announce the development of the ‘The New Real Observatory’, a step further in our aim to shape the future of climate data art.
Global leaders, activists and researchers have gathered for the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Scotland. Delayed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event is not only marking a ‘no-turning-back’ point to address the pressing climate emergency, but is also energising a new era of climate awareness and global behavioural change.
At The New Real, one of our core missions is to bridge the gap between global datasets and models about the environment and climate, and the local, everyday perspectives. It is sometimes hard to act when the problem is so much bigger than human scale and when the danger is not immediately apparent in our everyday lives. It is vital that we create a different relationship to the environment, and for this we need new connections, new experiences.
Hence, working with our leading academics and internationally renowned digital artists, we developed a stream of transformative projects with our festival partners.
In Summer 2021, we launched the AWEN: A Walk Encountering Nature experience (awen.earth), which was a pilot project with the Edinburgh Science Festival. It was developed by working closely with a broad interdisciplinary team of artists, designers, scientists and technologists.
We are now celebrating hundreds of AWEN journeys, and our team’s experience of transformative research and arts collaboration, in the following short documentary by filmmaker Ciara Flint, shown at COP26.
Watch our new AWEN film here, or to experience the project during COP26 visit www.awen.earth.
AWEN web application draws on data from multiple sources; primarily global climate models as well as direct observations of the environment from outer space. Because we wanted for this ambulatory walk to be accessible everywhere, the data analysis is automated. This means that there may be some imperfections in the dataset which can come through into the experience; like clouds blocking the view of the earth’s surface affecting the app’s calculation of how much vegetation there is around you. We invite our audiences to explore that link between global-scale data and what we call “ground truth” or reality.
Building on the very positive feedback and reception of AWEN, we have now also teamed up with the Alan Turing Institute, the world’s leading machine learning and artificial intelligence research centre, to develop a platform combining satellite data and advanced algorithms for climate-inspired cultural experiences - The New Real Observatory.
The New Real Observatory conceptually builds on the ambition for accessible, legible and tangible cultural experiences of our changing climate and our role within it. We are inviting leading digital artists to experiment with environmental datasets, climate models and processing pipelines to fuel a new generation of technology-conscious aesthetics situated in our connection with land, water, air and energy.
In addition to the Observatory’s climate mission, the research team is investigating the creative applications of advanced AI within the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Turing 2.0 project. In parallel, we are also exploring how digital experiences can support cultural organisations recover post-Covid-19 as part of the Resilience in the New Real project (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council).
As we are announcing the development of the New Real Observatory at COP26, we are particularly excited to be opening up the platform in due course to emerging artists, who will be inspired by the arising movements to lead a global shift in perspective towards the inextricable link between everyday actions and era-defining consequences.
We invite you to (re)visit the AWEN experience (walk.awen.earth) at this time of reflection and watch this space for more ways of connecting to our global climate!
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Further info:
Experiential AI at Edinburgh Futures Institute
Alan Turing Humanities and Data Science
