An exhibition on the environment Weinberg/Newton Gallery in Chicago
In early 2022, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, creator of the Doomsday clock and responsible for setting an alarm for how close the human race is close to extinction each year, oragnized an exhibition at the Weinberg/Newton Gallery in Chicago. This exhibition gathers a handful of artists who decided to tackle the subject of global warming and environmental issues and solutions. At the occasion of the exhibition, we presented an artwork created in collaboration with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and nature photographer Stas Bartnikas. This artwork, the DoomsdAI clock, is both a criticism and a message of hope, as the background is created using AI algorithms on pictures of the most remote and natural places of earth. By combining the beauty of nature represented by the background with the warning represented by the clock, we aim at shedding light on the environmental issue.
About the Doomsday Clock
The doomsday clock has been created by the Chicago Atomic Scientists for displaying the countdown until the end of the world following a human made disaster. As such, the clock is a metaphor of human threats on a global scale, the gap between the current time and midnight representing the risk of a global disaster. The clock evolves through time depending on world geopolitics, and can go forward as well as backwards. At first, at a time where the fear for a nuclear incident was at its greatest, the evolution of the time displayed on the clock depended greatly on the nuclear menace.
Since then, other possible causes have been included in the main threats to our planet: global warming and disruptive technologies. As a result, the recent evolution of the time displayed on the clock takes those metrics into account as well.
Our collaboration with Aerial Photographer Stas Bartnikas
This artwork is based on the work we created in the series Energy of the Earth, Amplified, a series of collaborations created using Generative Adversarial Networks on pictures of some of the most remote places on the Earth. These pictures were taken along the years by Stas, during his many trips around the world.
The DoomsdAI Clock
The DoomsdAI Clock is a physical evolving artwork composed of a video display of an AI generated video, and a frame made of aluminium and wood. The time displayed on the clock is updated depending on the official time announced by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
