The
incorporation of WOWUSA as a New York City based AWE investment house
spurred instant local founders' interest in the Fresh Kills landfill
recovery site as a major Kite Energy farm. Renewables was a formal
planning priority, but conventional wind towers were precluded by
unstable terrain. Kites were seen as an ideal option. It was learned a
contest for "Energy LandArt" had coincidentally been launched by a
Pittsburg arts organization, LAGI. These developments were covered in
the Forum more or less as they happened.
A
few AWE developers and tech artists expressed interest in the LAGI NYC
Energy LandArt contest, and proceeded to brainstorm perhaps the
strongest concept of all, but LAGI technical rules forbid prior public
disclosure by competitors, disqualifying all open-source creative
culture. The sharing of notes below violate the rule, in hope
that a public dynamic is the better creative bargain. The LAGI
Contest process could fail by its shortcomings and contradictions, and
the results are not binding on NYC. Lets hope many great talents and
ideas emerge from the LAGI contest in an inclusive way.
The
open "PlanNYC" AWES concept thus continues as a cooperative or
competitive option with whatever LAGI ends up with. The City of New
York will consider all options by a long exhaustive process before
acting, so we have a few more years to develop a real Kite Energy plan,
with Art to boot...
Here
are the notes to date, but the images from several sources are pending.
There is a final push to meet the contest deadline, albeit under
protest over the rules.
===============================================
Fresh-K LAGI LandArt Proposal Notes
AWES Forum Draft Concepts (unedited and pending final ideas)
Mission-
A robust "best practice" model for Energy LandArt on recovered landfills spread by popular demand
worldwide.
Environmental Impact Statement-
This
design proposal has as its uncompromising goal the ultimate longterm
remediation of Fresh Kills, with the best practices supported by the
power of Art. Every detail is aimed toward the lowest possible adverse
impacts on wildlife and the naturalistic character of the site
recovery. The key technical and aesthetic sculptural
means are minimal-mass monumental, with almost 100% recycled and
salvaged material with a sound decommissioning and upgrading strategy.
Sculptural Presence-
The
monumental sculpture is evolutionary over time. From a small seed, it
grows like a flower to fulfill every wish LAGI has posed. The
LandArt sculptural dimensionality will derive from the massive 3D
presence of the landfill. A monumental sculptural presence will be
developed in the sky over time.
Site Analysis
Fresh Kills is a mega-scale New York City former landfill in recouperation as a major public park. The Energy
LandArt Contest is in the
planning mix, but legacy conditions constrain allowable
activity. The
site is visible in the distance from large areas of the city, and would be especially conspicuous in the case of proposed aerial lightshows. A cultural superpower like New York has the vigor and multidisciplinary excellence to integrate High Art and Energy Sustainability, on a grand scale.
The landfill terrain is a prominent hill covered with grass. The extensive fill surface is in ongoing subsidence; fragile and unstable. New structure is relegated
to site margins, outside the landfill proper and limited to features that do not compete with the naturalistic character of the greater park.
Engineering
Integration
The specific LandArt methods require approval of the site's engineering authorities. In brief, allowable activity on the landfill is low-risk, easily-reversible,
low-impact (literally: no heavy vehicles or structures).
Within such constraints many creative
activities can thrive, especially Crop Art, Open-air Dance, Theatre, Light-Shows, Soft-Goods (fabric, inflatables). These modalities can be tested and refined during a pastiche phase and perfected
over time into a
mature masterpiece, fully integrated as megascale energy engineering.
There are hundreds of landfills worldwide that might adopt a
successful NYC Energy LandArt
Model.
Art Program Social Dynamics- Global Community
A bad LandArt contest outcome would be elitist and overly-minimalist, a sort of "Neo-Stalinist Monument", an
overpriced oversold unloved
"Neutron Bombed" megawork of banal modernism, a static work in fatal decay
cleansed of any popular public participation. The ideal outcome would be a cultural miracle, a
techinogical and artistic tour-de-force to help bring a world together and
makes a definite contribution
to human energy ecology.
This submission supposes
multidisciplinary teamwork under cooperative non-profit governance, with deep
community roots and values. New York's unexcelled culture offers a potent hosting dynamic for top world
talent, for a "Team Earth"
vibe.
Schools, engineering, scientific, and artistic professions, artists,
A not-for-profit board balanced by broad stakeholder participation. Total transparency of planning and funding.
Integrated educational participation, from kindergarden to
elite universities.
"Elders" are tasked
with mentoring real creative opportunities for the young, in large
numbers.
Volunteer staff
operating under cooperative guidelines, paid by shared excellence, by esprit. They balance the
paid-management technocratic viewpoint.
Tourism, jobs, and other benefits are expected outcomes of a sucessful program. Tourism and jobs would
follow the Arts, with a few hundred energy jobs possible longterm.
A populist vibe could include an equitable role for "High Art", as represented by
leading
cultural institutions such as Museums. These institutions would take a leading role in partnering
the art.
An Artist-in-Residence program would channel particpation by visiting "star" artists.
Valued roles should be maintained for donors, suitable corporate partnerships, and
permissible
commercial activity. A long list of contributors, small business members, and diversified revenue sources
would be ideal. No one interest should predominate the
"commons".
Energy Technology Notes
This
proposal calls for an early low impact phase of crop LandArt by
modulating the current mowing activitie to create guest art. The hay
crop would be managed as an experimental energy fuel and sequestered
carbon (as biochar). Follow-on phases would be increasingly ambituous,
but the crop art would remain as part of the landfill management.
The site is already a significant methane energy production site.
Conventional wind towers are precluded
by the sub-surface conditins. A calculable amount of solar energy is present, by area available and
climate, but options for solar are limited by the landfill condition. Biomass solar,
the harvesting
of
a plant crop for energy is the least impact of any option, and forms the initial basis for this proposal.
The biggest site energy resource remains
to consider; the Upper Wind
energy
resource. Airborne Wind Energy is a rapidly developing field, and New York is already identfied as an ideal
location by climatologists [2]
A risk is to
over-committ to a narrow energy production strategy that ends up
badly inferior to future solutions. A flexible cautious approach to the energy-art mix
offers multiple migration paths to eventual best practice for renewable
energy.
An Energy Hybrid technical ecology best addresses site constraints and
future
uncertainty. Here Art serves ecological and societal urgencies, even to the point of
self-cancelation. The Art would still live on as a cultural memory, as media.
As a varied parade of artwork, both popular and pushing boundaries, minimal "positive" guidelines may
suffice to balance individual artisitc freedom with the evolving standards of global
community. Most
important would be the diversity of human voices over the narrow narratives of special interests.
Techne Concept- Art and science-technology as an integrated human
Lowest Embodied Energy-
Crop Art is identified as the simplest and least capital intensive artistic medium to begin the
Energy LandArt project. Besides a Camp
association with hoaxed "alien crop circles", serious
artists
doing immpressive work with living plants are known, and a long succession of such works on the
landfill mound would surely provide some amazing Art.
Grass as Solar
Energy. Feed Animals, such as NYC's Zoo animals. Biogas as
a
Low Mass, Recyclable, Art From Salvage,
Botanical Art as Solar Biomass
Biochar as CO2 sequestration, used to regenerate humus in degraded soils.
Subject to all applicable standards, eventual integration is forseen of LandArt biogas into the
methane grid by an
approved connection.This may be as
simple as connecting into an existing check-valve.
There is no requirement or haste that this integration occur, should implimentation prove burdensome.
Dynamic and evolutionary path to a grand result
Rich Open Complexity, Multidisciplinary, Best Technical Practices
Music, Land Arts, and Theatre
Hill Geometry as Theatre-in-the-Round.The public No-Go Zone is thus recouped for enjoyment by all
Human Actors and Artbots acting together to manage operations,
SkyArt Kites
