Temple Faculty Confront Climate Change at Fringe

Temple Faculty Confront Climate Change at Fringe

Sep 7 2021

In perhaps a precient artistic endeavour, Temple University faculty Roderick Coover (TFMA) and Adam Vidiksis (Boyer) have collaborated to create two large-scale public artworks that confront the effects of climate change on the local waterways, and will be a part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this September 8–23, 2021.

Roderick Coover, professor and co-director of the MA Program at the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, and Adam Vidiksis, assistant professor at the Boyer College of Music and Dance, along with computation poet Nick Montfort, have created THE FLOODS and WATER ON THE PIER, which take on questions of land-use, industrial contamination and sea-level rise through richly layered images, sound and generated language.

THE FLOODS—a massive video experience that immerses spectators in a kaleidoscopic journey in marshlands and industrial wastelands of the Anthropocene now being transformed by floods—runs at the Icebox Gallery, Crane Arts, September 8–12, between 12 p.m.–6 p.m. Coover’s images, gathered over the past decade from journeys on and around our rivers, combine with field recordings, voices and electronic sounds composed by Vidiksis, that activate the unique reverberation of the massive Icebox space. In a special live concert spectacle of THE FLOODS on September 10-11, drummer Vidiksis leads an ensemble of internationally renowned musicians in an hour-long concert performance that responds in the moment to the ever-changing video images, electronic sound, and text generated by THE FLOODS.

WATER ON THE PIER—an immersive public art installation that combines large-scale video, a massive soundscape and interactive elements driven by the ebbs, flows and forces of the Delaware River—runs at Cherry Street Pier September 16–23. It considers how climate conditions we face today are the consequence of decisions made then about urbanization, industrialization and sustainability. To confront these issues, the project offers multiple perspectives: vast soundscapes driven by the sounds of waters moving below the pier, personal experiences in which visitors discover sites by exploring a large map of the Delaware River that runs the length of the pier, videos that are on phones and a large screen, and generated text drawn from years of field observation

The projects are funded by a Temple Presidential Humanities and Arts Commission Award, a Temple University Vice Provost for the Arts Grant and Chouette Collective, LLC.

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