The Earth went quiet for some time. I could hear the crickets at night, and the birds by early morning. The air was cleaner and the grass certainly looked greener outside! I saw ducks on our doorstep! Birds of many colors flocked to the backyard. It was not just my imagination. Globally it was true. Dolphins seen in Italy. Jellyfish swam in the Venice canal. Bears and goats everywhere! My neighborhood literally went silent for weeks. It was the silence that brought them all out. They were in hiding while we roamed free.
Even though this phenomenon was witnessed around the globe - as soon as the quarantine lifted, we decided to go back to what we were doing without thinking about what we witnessed. Earth went through a mini healing period. The deep bleeding gash that we created in her flesh got some respite - from the daily assault of salt on it. Nature was breathing freely for some time.
Before we go back to rubbing salt on the fresh wound again, can we at least take a moment to acknowledge that what we witnessed was real? Noise pollution was real? The reduction was real too? Air pollution was real? The reduction was real too? Migration of humans real? The losses real too? The free movement of animals from hiding was real? Our encroachment on their space real too?
The goal of this artwork is to acknowledge that all of that was real - by recording their brief absence. The noise created by humans replaced by the sounds of nature as she breathed freely for a few weeks. To record the song of silence. Earth did sing, but silently.
The artwork hopes to be a witness to that time. A witness with data. As an artist, I felt inspired by the absence and the presence of new sounds and lights during this pandemic crisis. I know all of this data was captured by scientists and researchers.
I wanted to gather the:
My long term goal is to overlay them to create an artwork.
What is the purpose of such an imagery?
Every art movement in history happened to mark an event, whether private or public. To stand as a witness through time. To take a stand for something or to stand against something. It contained data also. Opinions, views and facts. From the cave paintings to the Sistine Chapel, they all contained some form of data. Captured a moment in time and froze it. Asking us to see it; think from their perspective. To take a flight in their imagined atmosphere. I am hoping this project will be one among them.
Data exists in many forms, memory is one of them. Visuals, audio, video, memories and imagination. Facts are a powerful form of data. Memories are a fragile form of data. Facts can strengthen memory. Together, they cannot be refuted. They can hold strong even in a court of law. My art project may or not be become a movement.
But it will stand as a personal and public testament to what happened to earth.
What happened to her inhabitants?
It is a message from earth, to her people. Begging them to not forget. To not repeat the same mistake. To gather insight from it.
My memory of what I witnessed, combined with the facts provided by a global team of organizations like NASA makes up this project. I called it Earth2Pandemozo.
Earth2Pandemozo stands for a message from Earth to all people/animals. Pan: Greek for All. Demo(s): Greek for People. Zo(o): for Animals. A message from earth to everyone inhabiting her land.
If Earth were to ask us to write her version of the story, how will we do it? The pandemic from her point of view? If she asked us to paint a picture? If she asked us to record her song? This project will be biased on behalf of her. Subjective to her perspective only.
What inspired me? The world went upside down. That's what. What was normal was no longer normal. Conventional wisdom was blown out. Scattered to the wind like the flecks of a dandelion as a child blows on it. Questions about the value of life beyond a certain age that were pondered personally, silently and usually muttered in shame; were now becoming public policy. They were even becoming corporate policy. Questions about education and economy that were diplomatically treaded, were now brutally, openly asked. A way of life enshrined by many; now seemed obsolete. Faster than rats to cheese in a maze, companies moved to remote. The love triangle of the value of work to life and the value of work to money, splintered; coming undone at the seams. The staggering death toll and the newly discovered prime value of just breathing on your own power, took center stage. The battle between essential versus choice in every sector of life, was unevenly matched. It was like a million Daniels vs one Goliath and no stones in sight. Some grudgingly won on Instacart while others lost in the government food ration lines that snaked for endless miles.
Beyond the human losses, beyond the economic losses, there was a hidden story. The story of earth. One that she has been trying to tell. We did not face an invisible virus. We crossed the invisible line that marked the entrance to the abyss. Like intruders tripping on a laser in a bank vault, we got zinged. Burnt. Shocked. Thrown by the current, we thrashed to a corner and threw a tantrum like a petulant child.
That is what inspired me.
My approach? My approach before this challenge came along, was to write and paint. It seemed unfair and maybe an injustice even, to not speak up. To remain quiet seemed like an atrocity. My plan was to tell stories. Stories of people. Stories of the birds and animals. Advocate for them. Maybe even tell my story, the story of 450 million people on earth living with an immune disorder?
How the macrocosm of the globe for the last 90 days mirrored the microcosm of our entire lives?
I was not sure. It was dangerous to be unsure. It was even more dangerous to be sure but wrong. The stakes were counted in real time.
I approached this challenge the same way I approached the answers to those questions. That I need to perch higher. Very high. Fly above it all to see the bigger picture. Take the view of the most silent entity in this. Find the common denominator. The elephant in the room.
It was Earth. And her people. I took her perspective and wanted to tell her side of the story.
Sitting at home, I created art and gave away art to raise funds for the frontline workers. I used the imagery of nature that was captured by ordinary people for that project - https://susannaraj.wordpress.com/. I joined organizations and advocated in writing for the ethical use of data, of her people as they stumbled out of this pandemic -https://medium.com/@susannaraj53/the-thorn-on-your-side-7ca9ce93f095.
But for this challenge, I went for a larger global project - I wanted to create a visual series of images, animations and paintings that acknowledged the events that Earth went through. Her people went through. What her landscape went through. And what her animals went through too.
Before, during and after. Before CE 2020. During 2020. After 2020.
How did I use data to support this? Through this challenge, I learned that I have access to more data than I could process! The data I will be using for this project includes:
And other data too. I saw a rising interest in art everywhere. People were turning to music, to art, to painting to seek meaning and therapy. The last well documented pandemic of 1918 also documented the rise of public interest in arts and the establishment of new art movements. Art as a witness armed with data became the theme behind this challenge.
I am not a data scientist but I am a researcher who works with data. Human data. I am also an artist who loves to bring a laconic view of science through art. To represent abstract concepts visually - https://susannaraj53.wixsite.com/susannarajart. A laconic view in art frees the imagination by limiting the collateral details. It gets to the gist, right away. (As you can see, I don't take the laconic approach when it comes to writing my thoughts!).
My tools? I was initially inspired by the video "Sounds of Mumbai by Pooja Choksi PhD" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWOWwAPfzlE. I wanted to see if a soundscape visual can be created from a combined spectrogram of audio from before and during Covid-19, around the globe.
This will be part of my project going forward.
But I realized that I won't be able to do it in 48 hours. I decided to use composite image work with Photoshop for now. And as an AI enthusiast who is concerned about the prolific use of that technology with little ethical oversight, I also plan to use RunwayML on some of the images. In addition to that, I also plan to paint those composite images on a canvas, a series of canvas paintings using mixed media. The mixed media I plan to use for this project will also symbolize the Covid-19 events, namely the scarcity of essential staples. Grains, beans and of course, toilet paper! At some point, I plan to do an animation of those composites images and the paintings.
I also created a website, thanks to Neustar! https://earth2pandemozo.co/index.html. This website will have the images before processing. It will have the composites. They will tell the story of earth. And it will also display the canvas artwork as they become completed. It may even become a platform for a global collective art project.
My problems? One was time! Downloading the images, processing them and creating the story took way too much time. The scope of my project is very big and so is the scale. I learned about this challenge one day before it went live. The idea of documenting the changes and creating a spectrogram visual came immediately. But the prep and execution of it seemed daunting. I had to pivot and change course to what I can do in 48 hours. I decided to lay the ground work, and for now stick to image data only. Audio data part will come later. As I worked on the vision, writing my thoughts down, I realized this needs to be done right and if I am going to take Earth's story, I must do her justice. And that means this project will just be a preview. An outline.
My achievements? The fact that I came this far is amazing to me! I never realized I could finish so much in so little time! My hard drive is filling up with images! Beautiful images of earth as well as painful ones! My mind is energized. Heart is heavy but open. But I'm tired! I always create my artwork first and then title them, write their vision, their intended purpose. This time, I did the opposite! I will be working on the website through the night. But I do feel sad that the artwork is not complete. I also feel grateful that I can be part of this community! The help I received so far has been humbling!
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/BorealMigration/boreal_migration3.php
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/search/?search=animal+migration
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146776/sandy-shores-of-moreton-bay
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps
https://audioboom.com/CitiesandMemory
https://www.countryliving.com/uk/news/g32066174/animals-deserted-towns-cities-lockdown/
https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/3rd-party-missions/current-missions/planetscope
https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MODAL2_M_AER_OD