Trapped in the spill

Oily Ocean

Fractals are not just forms generated randomly according to the principles of chaos theory - all on the contrary, fractals are a powerful tool for the realization of works whose purpose is not to produce art for above the sofa - The assertion that algorithmic art has "new things" to say is too flimsy a response to the problems that we are facing today, when there are no reasons anymore for art as entertainment or decoration, or as the expression of feelings or any other use like... like for instance, using Mozart's music to help dairy cows produce more milk! Art is much more than entertainment, decoration or to just produce trivial human wows! or, to paraphrase James Joyce: making satisfied moo-cows! I believe that algorithmic art must now engage in activities that have been "not appropriate" for the medium until now, during those times when it was still trying to find its own aesthetic. But now algorithimic art is finally ready to serve "non-artistic" purposes. It's not a problem, of course, if some prefer to continue on creating purely aesthetic and visually intriguing objects like spirals and so. There is nothing wrong in doing that, although doing so does not constitute the same "heroic" accomplishment that it once did when algorithimic artists were struggling to break away, and give birth to a new medium. That was the challenge of the last 20 years. But now those early steps belong to history. When I started with UF no more than 7 years ago, (which makes me a "junior" in this medium), I coined the expression "fractals with dirty hands" to mean my desire to relate them to reality. My first work with fractals I gave a name like "Rotten Spiral!" Since then I very seldom make spirals. I must also confess that very seldom did the swirl of spirals attract me. Unless I could untwist them! My first "serious" works I did around 2004 with themes like dirty water, oil spills and hospital garbage. I put them all under the name of "Vala Negra", a Brazilian expression referring to places in the slums of my city, Rio de Janeiro, where garbage is thrown. Dirty and stinking, such "valas" are. But more unexplored areas can be found by utilizing the means of this medium in both the creation and dissemination of insight and knowledge. 

Dark wave

Down on the bayou, reporters and activists have been pulled over and questioned by British Petroleum security guards and local police because they might be “terrorists.” Journalists have been kicked off public property, detained, harassed, and forced to hand over their photographs – and their Social Security numbers. They’ve been prevented from renting boats or flying below 3,000 feet over the coast. They’ve been threatened with arrest.

The Coast Guard put new rules in place to prevent the public, including the press, from coming within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the water or beaches, or face a civil penalty of up to $40,000. The Coast Guard called it a “safety zone.” Violators of the “safety zone” could face charges of a Class D felony under the Ports and Waterways Safety Act.

The federal government has thrown a perimeter around an entire region of the southeastern seaboard. The public – now seen as “the enemy” – is left in the dark, while BP and negligent federal regulators disguise the true nature of the devastation.

The Gulf Slick

2º C above

Down at the Abyssal Plain

'Most of the stories you hear about wild fish involve their disappearance, usually because of over-fishing. Now for a fish tale that's more upbeat. Marine biologists working in the Pacific Ocean say they found a tasty deep-sea fish that is unexpectedly thriving. '

Melting Ice

The oily skin of the oceans

Irreversible

'The interactions between environmental change and human societies have a long and complex history spanning many millennia. They vary greatly through time and from place to place. Despite this spatial and temporal variability, a global perspective has begun to emerge in recent years and to form the framework for a growing body of research within the environmental sciences. Crucial to the emergence of this perspective has been the dawning awareness of two aspects of Earth System functioning. First, that the Earth itself is a single system within which the biosphere is an active, essential component. Secondly, that human activities are now so pervasive and profound in their consequences that they affect the Earth at a global scale in complex, interactive and apparently accelerating ways; humans now have the capacity to alter the Earth System in ways that threaten the very processes and components, both biotic and abiotic, upon which the human species depends.'

excerpt of Global Change and the Earth System.

A Planet Under Pressure. (2005)

The IGBP Series

The Anthropocene

Without major catastrophes like an enormous volcanic eruption, an unexpected epidemic, a large-scale nuclear war, an asteroid impact, a new ice age, or continued plundering of Earth's resources by partially still primitive technology (the last four dangers can, however, be prevented in a real functioning no6sphere) mankind will remain a major geological force for many millennia, maybe millions of years, to come. To develop a world-wide accepted strategy leading to sustainability of ecosystems against human induced stresses will be one of the great future tasks of mankind, requiring intensive research efforts and wise application of the knowledge thus acquired in the noösphere, better known as knowledge or information society. An exciting, but also difficult and daunting task lies ahead of the global research and engineering community to guide mankind towards global, sustainable, environmental management.

Prof. Paul J. Crutzen´s "The Anthropocene"

The Garbage Patch

"It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill. How did all the plastic end up here?"

Susan Casey´s "Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic... Are We?"

Map of the gyre. The blue square represents one study of the garbage patch.
My fractal image wants to represent the surprise before the horror. I think it is the first time the Garbage Patch has been graphically represented, except for photos. For those that want to read the six page description which leads me into the adventure of making an image tied with the reality, it is here:

The Newtown Creek spill

One of the world’s largest underground oil spills lurks beneath the shores of Newtown Creek in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, courtesy of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and others. At approximately 17 million gallons and 55 acres, the spill is at least 6 million gallons larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The spill is the result of leaks in the 1940s and 1950s. ExxonMobil neglected the spill for more than two decades, as it slowly migrated under the community and into the creek.

excerpt of Greenpoint Oil Spill on Newtown Creek,

from riverkeeper.org

Pollution´s real image at Newtown Creek

Devastating Beauty

When it comes to mixing oil and water, oceans suffer from far more than an occasional devastating spill. Disasters make headlines, but hundreds of millions of gallons of oil quietly end up in the seas every year, mostly from non-accidental sources.

Used engine oil can end up in waterways. An average oil change uses five quarts; one change can contaminate a million gallons of fresh water. Much oil in runoff from land and municipal and industrial wastes ends up in the oceans.

Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill.

Every year, bilge cleaning and other ship operations release millions of gallons of oil into navigable waters, in thousands of discharges of just a few gallons each.

Air pollution, mainly from cars and industry, places hundreds of tons of hydrocarbons into the oceans each year. Particles settle, and rain washes hydrocarbons from the air into the oceans.

Only about 5 percent of oil pollution in oceans is due to major tanker accidents, but one big spill can disrupt sea and shore life for miles.

excerpts from "Ocean Planet," a 1995 Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition

Oil on the Sea

from "The Indian Ocean - A Perspective"

Glacier Melt

Global sea level is currently rising as a result of both ocean thermal expansion and glacier melt, with each accounting for about half of the observed sea level rise, and each caused by recent increases in global mean temperature. Antarctica and Greenland, the world's largest ice sheets, make up the vast majority of the Earth's ice. If these ice sheets melted entirely, sea level would rise by more than 70 meters - according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.