Does a work about climate change necessarily have to be sustainable and only use green energy?

Bigert and Bergström’s intentionally controversial work has weather, the scenery of our everyday life, at its centre. Its starting point was provided by weather machines known from theatre history, which were used to generate the sounds of rain, wind and lightning. The sculptural elements in the performative installation titled Scenario/Scenery both act and serve as scenery. The joint performance of the various lightning, rain and wind machines is kept in motion by the energy transformed from the light of the halogen lamps illuminating the solar panels on the stage from above. Although the mechanism looks like a ‘perpetuum mobile’ that uses renewable energy and keeps itself in motion infinitely, it actually uses ten times as much energy as the motors operating it would require.

A common reaction to the fear people feel in connection with climate change is that the solution is expected to come from various technological and scientific innovations; the knowledge related to these gives us a reassurance of some kind. As British philosopher Timothy Morton pointed out, the reason for the massive information dump and information consumption related to the climate situation is that the fear of predictable events is easier to cope with than the fear of the unknown. Research has found that an effective treatment for sleep disorder and depression caused by the anxiety about global warming can, again, controversially, be sunlight therapy.

Instead of presenting reassuring visions of the future and scenarios dispelling fear, Bigert and Bergström’s weather machine encourages visitors to leave behind their present mentality and turn to the issue of climate change in earnest.

Borbála Szalai