NEON joins the newly founded ground-breaking alliance of art institutions from 28 countries across the world to form the World Weather Network, creating an international digital platform of artistic creation in response to global climate crisis.
For the World Weather Network, NEON presents 112, Climate Tone, a contemporary art project with a focus on climate change and the environmental crisis as an urgent and ongoing condition. 112, Climate Tone operates as an unconventional weather station for the World Weather Network, observing from the local scale to the global, one deriving from the other. The project utilises three fields of documentation – sonic, visual and dialogue-based – that supply material to the station on the World Weather Network platform, intending to broadcast an alert for the climate.
112 is the pan-European telephone number for the communication of information about emergencies, upcoming or ongoing. In recent years, such emergencies are becoming increasingly and systematically linked to climate change, almost identifying the number 112 with the environmental crisis; a ringtone on a mobile phone becomes both an update on a local event and a reminder of the ongoing global environmental catastrophe.
For 112, Climate Tone, NEON commissions two artists, Greek composer and sound artist Stavros Gasparatos, and photographer Natalia Tsoukala, supported by the project’s Scientific Advisor Professor of Meteorology and Climatology Prodromos Zanis, Lead Author of the 6th chapter of the 2021 IPCC report, addressing the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change.
Stavros Gasparatos
Sonic Weather Station | An alert for the climate
The Sonic Weather Station is an online artwork, a program that generates sonic output by receiving combined weather data from a physical weather station in Greece (Thessaloniki: Meteorological Station of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). The meteorological data are translated live to sound forming an immersive experience of changing weather patterns. Visitors to the website can interact with the Sonic Weather Station by isolating channels through the station’s interactive interface.
Discover the Sonic Weather Station at sonicweatherstation.online
Sonic Weather Reports
The Sonic Weather Reports are monthly sonic compositions, by Stavros Gasparatos, produced using current and archival climate data from weather stations in Greece, as well as various field recordings, to develop a correlation between sound and climate change.
Natalia Tsoukala
Natalia Tsoukala records the transformations of the landscape in Greece by energy production and distribution networks, responding to the energy industry’s widespread and substantial disruption of the climate on a global scale.
Landscapes of Energy is Natalia Tsoukala’s visual weather reports; an ongoing photography series documenting the imprint of energy network on the landscapes of Greece. How do we produce and consume energy, and what imprint does that leave on the landscape? These photographs, although recorded locally, depict the adverse climatic conditions shaped globally by the rapid increase in energy demand from an outdated and harmful international network of production.
Report #1
Landscapes of Energy | Powerplants
Report #2
Landscapes of Energy | Overconsumption
Report #3
Landscapes of Energy | Renewable Energy
Report #4
Landscapes of Energy | Transportation
Report #5
Landscapes of Energy | Urban Heat Island Phenomenon
Report #6
Landscapes of Energy | Industrial Facilities
Breaking Weather News Report
Natalia Tsoukala also documents the current breaking weather conditions in Greece as they are taking place.
Breaking Weather News Report #1
Sitia, Crete, October 2022
What does the weather look like in Greece?
Photographer Natalia Tsoukala, commissioned by 112, Climate Tone, created a time-series of photographs depicting the changing weather in Athens over 1 full year (June 2022 – June 2023).
The variation of elements in photographs shot from the same position, day by day, record characteristically specific local weather changes, revealing its essence. Noting the highest temperature each day in the top right-hand corner of each image, Tsoukala chronicles what the weather looks like from three different urban viewpoints, gazing at where the city meets the natural environment.
Podcast Series
A series of podcasts created with the intention to send a localised signal about the environmental crisis from our geographical position to the world; Greece sending a local warning signal from the Mediterranean Basin to the global ecosystem. Greek scientists, organizations and groups are taking part in informative conversations and provide micro-lectures with a focus on the environment and climate change.
The podcasts were curated by the 112, Climate Tone curatorial team Fanis Kafantaris, Ioanna Mimi and Andrew Spyrou.
Podcast Audio Production supported by Frontstage
Episode #1 | A Climatologist’s Signal from Greece by Professor Prodromos Zanis
Episode #2 | Broadcasting the Weather in Greece by Greek National Television weather broadcaster, Sakis Arnaoutoglou
Episode #3 | The Results of a Nationwide Survey about Attitudes to Climate Change in Greece, by Dr. Fay Makantasi, Research Director at the independent research institution diaNEOsis
Episode #4 | The Mediterranean Sea, a Marine Ecosystem in Danger with Anastasia Miliou, Scientific Director of the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, Professor Stelios Katsanevakis, from the Department of Marine Sciences of the University of the Aegean and Andrew Spyrou, co-curator of 112, Climate Tone
Episode #5 | The Greek Terrestrial Ecosystem – A Site of Vulnerability and Resilience with Sheila Darmos, Social Entrepreneur and co-founder and Director of The Southern Light, Professor Prodromos Zanis, Atmospheric Physicist at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Andrew Spyrou, co-curator of 112, Climate Tone
In Εpisode #6, the latest in the series, titled 1 Year of 112, Climate Tone the curatorial team of 112, Climate Tone, Fanis Kafantaris, Ioanna Mimi and Andrew Spyrou discuss with artists Stavros Gasparatos and Natalia Tsoukala about our relationship with climate change and the environment in Greece, as well as the artworks they developed as part of the project.
The podcast served as an opportunity to review a year of work carried out by two of the key participants in the 112, Climate Tone project, and as a way to understand the impact that the process also had on their own practice.
The podcast series is available on Spotify.
Webinar
Signals from Greece | The link of global warming levels with climate change in the Mediterranean region
“Why a temperature rise of just 1.5°C is crucial to the ecosystem?”
Prof. Prodromos Zanis, Department of Meteorology and Climatology, School of Geology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece discusses with Ioanna Mimi, co-curator of 112, Climate Tone and highlights the link between global warming and climate change in the Mediterranean region for the recent past and the projected future.
Watch the Webinar in the video below:
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS
112, Climate Tone traveled the world and was featured in the exhibitions of Art Sonje Center & (TOGETHER)(TOGETHER) in Seoul, South Korea and SAHA Studio Open in Istanbul, Turkey, while Natalia Tsoukala took-over with her photographs of the Landscapes of Energy the London Review of Books Instagram feed for one day.
