[Image: Suspended Sounds] There’s a fascinating conversation on the YASMIN listserve on the topic Lovely Weather - Art and Climate Change. It began with a question from Janine Randerson, “Can Art be a ‘mediator’ between Art and Climate Science?”

In an exchange between David McConville and Joel Chadabe, David wrote that while scientists “excel at collecting and archiving data, communicating the meaning behind the data is not their specialty. Since humanity’s long-term success is dependent on increased understanding of this data and what it can reveal about systems-oriented processes, asking what the arts can do for the sciences has never been more important.” He goes on to say that he uses sonification in his immersive displays to bring phenomena beyond human perception into conscious awareness.

Joel, who is Executive curator and producer of Ear to the Earth Festival, added “I would say that listening is close and personal. Listening creates feelings of connection and involvement. The more focused our listening, the greater will be our feelings of experiencing the environment, and the deeper and more immediate will be our understandings of the world.” He offered Suspended Sounds as an example, an immersive installation dealing with the sounds of extinct, endangered, and threatened species: “it cast a spell. We all felt the direct emotional impact of disappearing species.” Read the full exchange here.