Frozen Relic: Arctic Works from ScanLAB on Vimeo.
"Save the Arctic, is a ground- breaking collaboration between scientists, architects and environmentalists. This summer the Greenpeace ship, The Arctic Sunrise, took a research team headed by leading scientist Peter Wadhams and London-based designers ScanLAB to remote Arctic waters in order to deepen our understanding of the threats faced by this unique and fragile region. During this expedition to the Fram Strait, northwest of Svalbard in Norway, ScanLAB were able to capture a huge amount of data, documenting a series of ice floes using millimetre-perfect 3D scanning technology, capturing a total of 26 floes in forensic detail, mapping their surfaces precisely.
The exhibition, Frozen Relic: Arctic Works, recreates this landscape in
its natural material – frozen saltwater. Each piece is a digitally
fabricated scale replica of the original ice floe which was 3D scanned
from above and documented using underwater sonar from below. The
completed digital model is used to guide a CNC machine which carves the
moulds in which each replica is cast.
Visitors entering the gallery found themselves in a darkened room;
the suspended ice floes glowing in an icy archipelago. Like the fragile
environment they are born from, these exhibits are disappearing. Every
day they completely melt into the drip trays below, being refrozen and
rehung for the following day. As the installation melts, it left only
the supporting structure which itself accurately represents the
scientific data that remains of this captured ice floe. Left with only
their forensic records, ScanLAB speculate on this disappearing landscape
for which architects may only ever design theoretically."more scarily good work over at Scanlabs
