What is Missing? is a multi-media multi-site memorial by Maya Lin that aims to build awareness about species loss and highlight what scientists and environmental groups throughout the world are doing to protect species and habitats. It’s a manifestation of the mission of the What is Missing? Foundation to make the sixth extinction more visible through artwork based on science, and to emphasize the importance of preventing deforestation as a way of reducing emissions and protecting animals and habitat. Maya Lin describes the project on her website:

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of our planet. The last one was caused by an asteroid the size of Manhattan hitting the earth at the speed of 18,000 meters per second. We are now witnessing the sixth mass extinction in the planet’s history, the only one caused not by a catastrophic event, but by the actions of one single species: mankind.

Approximately every 20 minutes we witness the disappearance of a distinct living species of plant or animal. Within our lifetime we will witness the extinction of an incalculable number of species. By some estimates, as much as 30 percent of the world’s animals and plants could be on a path to extinction within 100 years.

What is Missing? will make us aware of the enormous loss of species that is presently occurring. Chronicling not just the extinction of specific species, it will focus equal attention on the threatened habitats and ecosystems that are vital to other species’ survival. It will also address the issues that people are not even aware are disappearing, from the sheer abundance of species and their scale to the loss of migratory corridors, the diminished sounds of songbirds that were common in our childhood, even the visibility of the stars at night.

The goal of What is Missing? is to not just make us aware of these losses but to give us direction and hope for what can be done to help.

What is Missing? will provide an overview of what is being done throughout the world in terms of conservation and habitat protection. It will give viewers a glimpse of our global environment, taking people to different places, highlighting specific groups and showing the progress that is being made in the critical areas in which they work.

What is Missing? will pose a question: Can we achieve carbon neutrality through a model of sustainable growth that is integrally linked with habitat preservation and sustainable agricultural and forestry practices?

The memorial consists of multiple permanent and temporary art installations, 70 videos, and future plans for a book. What is Missing? debuted last year with the permanent art installation titled “Listening Cone,” which, as described in The Architect’s Newspaper, is “a quietly imposing cast-bronze form lined with reclaimed redwood.”

It draws visitors in with the sounds of 50 extinct or endangered species and landscapes, sourced from research archives worldwide. Within the cone, compelling quotes, statistics, and images emerge on an eye-shaped video screen.

Maya Lin, What is Missing? Listening Cone, 2009, installed at California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. | Photo by: Bruce Damonte Photography, Inc. © Maya Lin Studio, Inc., courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York. (via Flickr / WBUR)

Maya Lin, What is Missing? Listening Cone, 2009, installed at California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. | A video of a jaguar plays inside the Listening Cone. (via Ezra Magazine)

Soon after the “Listening Cone” was installed, Lin’s traveling exhibit “The Empty Room” debuted at the Beijing Center for the Arts, with corresponding debuts at Salon 94 in New York City and the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. Cornell University’s Chronicle describes the exhibit:

It features an empty room with pinholes in the floor that project the short, looped videos toward the ceiling. Visitors will carry a thin, clear screen that lights up with images when held above the pinhole.

“‘The Empty Room’ really speaks to the notion of absence — that there is nothing physical about this exhibit and that the form is the information — a visitor is able to hold a species in their hands,” said Lin.

Maya Lin, What is Missing? The Empty Room, 2009, installed at the Beijing Center for the Arts, China. | Photo by Matthew Niederhauser. © Maya Lin Studio, Inc., courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York. (via Flickr / WBUR)

The videos on display in both the “Listening Cone” and “Empty Room” installations are the main content pieces for the memorial. They’re all available online at WhatIsMissing.net with just a click on a colored dot on the world map. The videos have stunning images from all over the world with text overlays describing the magnitude of the problems facing each video subject. The current iteration of the online world map and videos are the first part of Lin’s larger “Map of Memory” project within the What is Missing? memorial. The intention is to make the map interactive by next year, and allow “individuals to contribute a specific memory of places and things they have witnessed disappear in their lifetimes, to create a living memorial to the planet.”

“Each dot on the Map of Memory represents a species, place, or natural phenomenon that has disappeared or significantly diminished. Clicking on a colored dot on the map will open a video that tells a story of the animal, habitat, or concept it represents.” (screenshot and text via WhatIsMissing.net)

The videos are short, well produced, and have good facts about endangered species and habitats. I encourage you to look through them. The sort of ‘overview’ video of the memorial appeared on MTV’s billboard in New York City’s Times Square this past Earth Day, and is embedded below the following image.

Creative Time presented Maya Lin AT 44 1/2 video art on MTV’s HD screen in Times Square, April 15-30, 2010. The videos aired at the top of every hour. For more information on AT 44 1/2, please visit their website. (image of billboard captured at WhatIsMissing.net)

Another video worth watching is the “Unchopping a Tree” video that concentrates on the the issue of deforestation specifically. It shows different urban parks around the world along with statistics on how quickly they would be destroyed based on current deforestation rates, and asks “If deforestation was happening in your city, how quickly would you work to stop it?” The video ends with a reverse animation of a felled tree being ‘unchopped’ and points out that not chopping a tree or planting a new one is really the only realistic option. The final message is that through saving trees we can reduce emissions and save species. “Together we can save two birds with one tree.”

Maya Lin, What is Missing? Unchopping A Tree, 2009. Produced by @radical media. © What is Missing? Foundation. (images above are screenshots of the last few frames of the video, which show a tree being “unchopped”)

Related stories in the Worldchanging archives:

• The Frozen Zoo: A Seed Bank for Endangered Animals | WorldChanging Team, 11 Oct 10
  
• Biodiversity 100: An International Campaign is Launched | Amanda Reed, 20 Aug 10
  
• Biodiversity: An Introductory Video and a Chart of Industry’s Impact | Amanda Reed, 14 Jul 10
  
• A Living Archive of the Dead: Extinction Tattoos Photo Essay | Amanda Reed, 27 Aug 10
  
• Biodiversity Triage and Frozen Zooz | Alex Steffen, 11 Nov 03

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(Posted by Amanda Reed in Arts at 2:00 PM)

Bill McKibben of 350.org has invited everyone around the world to this weekend’s ‘Global Work Party,’ which pairs grassroots environmental activism with political engagement:

It’s been a tough year…So we’re having a party.

Circle 10/10/10 on your calendar. That’s the date. The place is wherever you live. And the point is to do something that will help deal with global warming in your city or community.

We’re calling it a Global Work Party, with emphasis on both ‘work’ and ‘party’…

Since we’ve already worked hard to call, email, petition, and protest to get politicians to move, and they haven’t moved fast enough, now it’s time to show that we really do have the tools we need to get serious about the climate crisis.

On 10/10/10 we’ll show that we the people can do this–but we need bold energy policies from our political leaders to do it on a scale that truly matters. The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you can get to work too–on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run.

What you are your plans for 10/10/10? Over 7,081 events in 188 countries are already planned (as of this posting). For a complete list of events in your area, visit www.350.org.

For inspiration, here are some pictures from last year’s International Day of Climate Action courtesy of 350.org’s Flickr stream:

GIBSONS B.C. Canada: An aerial view of the 344 (just short of 350 people at the local rally. Taken with a 25 foot high mast and multiple fisheye pictures, it is warped into a “Little Planet.” (Photo by Chris Yeske)

BELGRADE, Serbia: Students and community members planted trees to reduce global climate change.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa. Religious leaders march in a 350.org climate awareness procession in downtown Cape Town. Left front is Sheikh Muhamed Gallant (Muslim religion), center is Bulelani Macwili (African Traditional religion) and behind him, wearing purple robes is Archbishop Thabo Makgoba (Anglican church). (Photo by Paul Weinberg)

SHANGHAI, China: Greennovate and BEAN (Shanghai volunteer team) teamed up to organize an environmental education day at Fenfa Primary School in Shanghai’s Minhang district. The one-day workshop included environmental discussions, short films on environmental protection, decorating recycling bins, and potting plants. (Photo by Schuyler Olsson)

EAST PALO ALTO, California, United States: Volunteers with Collective Roots helped plant a community garden as part of a sustainable food initiative at the East Palo Alto Charter School.

SAN’A', Yemen: Youth learn about the impacts of climate change and take action against its dangerous effects. Young people hold educational signs in front of Yemen’s largest mosque.

HOMER, Alaska, United States: A giant Salmon and 350 mosaic design by Mavis Muller on Bishops Beach.

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(Posted by Amanda Reed in Movement Building and Activism at 3:45 PM)

Jessica Hagy, the artist behind ThisIsIndexed, attended our “Future City” event last week and made her index drawings during the mayoral discussion. Below are the results, in chronological order.

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(Posted by Amanda Reed in Arts at 1:30 PM)

The Autodesk Sustainability Workshop offers resources to show you how to design more sustainably. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Worldchangers Dawn Danby and Jer Faludi have just helped Autodesk launch an exciting online portal of educational content for engineering students and teachers called the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop. The online workshop consists of short informative videos that introduce essential concepts of sustainable design, such as “Whole Systems Design” and “Lightweighting,” as well as links to more resources. The project was made by two of Worldchanging’s allies and correspondents, Dawn Danby (Autodesk’s Sustainable Design Program Manager) and Jer Faludi, along with Dawn’s main collaborator at Autodesk, Adam Menter, a brilliant content strategist and green designer-engineer. The team worked with Free Range Studios, who made “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leanard, to produce all the short videos for the Sustainability Workshop.

The Sustainability Workshop was developed with engineers in mind, particularly mechanical engineers. While there is a lot of high-level dialogue about sustainable design happening in the design community and press, there is not nearly as much among mechanical engineers. As Dawn relayed to me, this is worrying because there are at least an order of magnitude more practicing engineers (or more) than there are practicing designers. When we talk about design saving the world, many – if not most – of those “designers” are engineers and inventors. They need, and are looking for, really specific strategies and technical solutions; not platitudes. Dawn said:

“Mechanical engineers are a huge leverage point. They’re responsible for so many of the decisions humans make about resource use. They’re working on motors, vehicles, products; building systems; these are all things that use energy, materials and water, and contribute – often in massive ways – to global emissions. And yet they’re taught to make, design and build far less often than you’d expect – and not enough of them are being taught to incorporate environmental impact, aside from in a cursory way. We’re working to deliver students tools and information to help them teach themselves about sustainability, as quickly and effectively as possible.”

The Sustainability Workshop aims to fill this gap in education, to do a better job at framing the problems that engineers love to solve, and to provide the tips, techniques, and tools engineering students and professionals need for optimizing and improving their designs. The videos and tutorials are short, but technical, in order to help busy viewers quickly dive in to the really actionable, physical side of sustainable design. As Jer said:

“I’m very excited about the videos and other resources, because as an educator myself, this is the sort of thing I want to have available. It’s not an entire canned curriculum that I may or may not agree with the flow and duration of, but little bite-sized modules that can easily be worked into any number of different courses with different overall goals. They could be used for a design class, or a mechanical engineering class, or even a management class that wants to educate managers about the more technical aspects of sustainability. The combined Whole Systems & Life-Cycle thinking process could potentially be a very powerful tool for designers and business executives to innovate their products and services.”

While the project was built specifically for mechanical engineering undergraduate students, the team thinks it would also be interesting to industrial design students (who may not get this technical with their sustainability approaches), mechanical engineering and industrial design teachers (who are looking for a quick resources to supplement their already super full curriculum), other young students, and adult engineers and designers who are retooling and learning new tricks.

So far the project team has done deep-dives into two key concepts:

• Whole Systems and Life Cycle thinking, which introduces concepts of big-picture design process; and
  
• Lightweighting, which addresses tactics around material use

The team looks forward to adding more topics in the future. As they told me “No single sustainable design strategy is a panacea, and we want students to be equipped with all kinds of approaches. There are lots of other things to dive into around material consciousness and dematerialization, energy use and product life.” Be sure to check out the website and follow the project on Twitter at @ecoworkshop if you’d like to keep informed of developments!

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(Posted by Amanda Reed in Education at 3:15 PM)

DUMBO Underwater (Image courtesy of the artist, Eric Corriel)

Artist Eric Corriel has created a video installation in Brooklyn, New York that dramatizes and visualizes what that area might look like if the East River overflowed. He piece was inspired by imagining New York City under water as a result of sea-level rise. He has titled the project DUMBO Underwater in reference to the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn where it is set.

If you are in New York, you can view the installation live anytime between sundown and sunset on 81 Front Street until October 13, 2010. The rest of us can enjoy this video below:

For more visualizations of New York City after the seas rise, see the Rising Currents exhibit at MoMA.

Other related stories in the Worldchanging archives:

• HafenCity: A Case Study on Future-Adaptive Urban Development | Amanda Reed, 31 Aug 10
  
• Sea Change 2030: Three First Prize Winners Re-Imagine Sydney Harbor for Rising Seas | Amanda Reed, 10 Aug 10

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(Posted by Amanda Reed in Arts at 9:00 AM)