The lack of action to address the climate crisis in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence that human activities are causing the changes demonstrates that engagement and empowerment sometimes require more than simply understanding the problem. The scale of the climate crisis and the inefficacy of individual action to address it create an emotional response that inhibits action. Dr. Jones and her Center are engaging with the artistic community to explore ways in which the arts can engage with the science to increase action.
Creating Change Through Music: Understanding Risk
In partnership with Emiliano Rodriguez Nuesch and the World Bank, the Jones Center has looked at how music can inspire action. In a project called “Creating Change Through Music: Understanding Risk,” Dr. Jones and Haitian artist Tafa Mi Soleil discussed how music can create movement from an understanding of risk to action of preventing risk and preparation. Tafa Mi Soleil composed a song taking the scientific understanding of what is needed to prepare for a hurricane and turning it into something people can grasp and remember. The conversation and song were released in December 2020 through Vimeo using the password: violadagamba.
Climate Change Composition
Dr. Jones composed a piece of music for a viol ensemble where the data on global temperature increase has been converted into a musical line and used as the basis of the composition, “In Nomine Terra Calens: In the name of a warming earth.” This piece allows the listener to hear Earth’s temperature data over the last 138 years. The Center commissioned a visual animation of the same data from Prof. Ming Tai, head of animation at the Art Center College of Design. These two works premiered at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum “Night of Ideas” on February 1, 2019. With reviews in both Popular Science and Classic FM, have led to more than 40,000 views. The New York-based ensemble, Parthenia Viols, performed the piece in the closing concert for the exhibition Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum, a Collateral Event of the 2019 Venice Biennale, in Venice Italy in November 2019.