CLIMATE CLOCK

Colloquium
CLIMATE CLOCK
Monday / Tuesday
June 09 – 10
San José State University
Davidson College of Engineering Auditorium

The Climate Clock Colloquium is a two-day, invitation-only gathering of thought lead-

ers, researchers, curators and artists to discuss and inform the global public art enterprise,
The Climate Clock Initiative. The colloquium will include presentations by seven semi-finalist,
artist-led teams who are in competition for $50,000 and a FUSE : collaboration residency. The
residency will be used to develop a site-specific proposal for an artwork aimed at changing
individual and public thinking and behavior around the issue of climate change. This process
is enabled through a unique partnership with FUSE:_cadre/montalvo research residency ini-
tiative and the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs/ Public Art Program in cooperation
with 1st Act Silicon Valley, the San José Redevelopment Agency, and ZERO1.The Climate
Clock Colloquium is the concluding program of the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art
on the Edge, June 4-8 2008.

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Climate Clock San José
 Program
Monday / Tuesday
June 09 – 10

monday
JUNE 09 The art, science and technology
informing the Climate Clock
8:30 – 9a Coffee and Tea
9 – 9:15a Welcome
Mayor of the City of San José, Chuck Reed
and San José State University President, Don W. Kassing
9:15 – 9:30a Introduction
Origins of the Climate Clock Initiative
Seth Fearey
9:30 – 9:50a The Climate Clock Initiative and Colloquium Agenda
Joel Slayton, Director, FUSE and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media,
Executive Director, Zero1
9:50 – 10a Break
10 – 10:30a Public Art, Social Change and the New Urbanity
Barbara Goldstein, Director of the San José Public Art Program
Bob Sain, Executive Director, Montalvo Art Center
10:45 – 11:30a Morning Keynote
Changing Behavior: Closing the Feedback Loop
Robert Gifford, Managing Editor, Journal of Environmental Psychology
Professor, University of Victoria, Canada
11:30 – 12:30p Complimentary Lunch, University Room
12:30 – 1:30p Afternoon Keynote
The Game Plan—Making Climate Protection Personal
Dr. Saul Griffith, Co-founder of Squid Labs, Low-Cost Eyeglasses,
Potenco, Instructables, and Makani Power.
Regular contributor to Make Magazine and HowToons.

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Climate Clock San José
1:30 – 2:20p The Realities of Climate Change
Peter Brewer and Jim Barry, MBARI
2:30 – 3:20p The Data Challenge
Marc Fischer, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, CA LGEM project
Bette Otto-Bliesner, NCAR
James Bellingham, MBARI
3:30 – 4:20p Sustainable Design: Lessons Learned
Steve Bishop, IDEO
4:30 – 5:20p The Challenge of New Technologies
Moderator: Eric Paulos, Intel Berkeley
Steve Landau, Phillips Lumileds Lighting Company
Tim Dye, Sr. Vice President, Sonoma Technology, Inc
5:30 – 5:45p Setting the Stage for the Artist Presentations
Barbara Goldstein, San José Public Art Program
5:45 – 6:45p FUSE Reception/Exhibition Viewing:
Climate Clock Concept Design Exhibition
tuesday
JUNE 10 Artists’ presentations and discussion
8:30 – 9a Coffee and Tea
9 – Noon Introduction and Artist Team Presentations
Barbara Goldstein, Director of the San José Public Art Program
Artist Team Presentations, Discussion & Feedback
Noon – 1p Complimentary Lunch, University Room
1 – 4p Continuation
Artist Team Presentations, Discussion & Feedback
4 – 4:15p Summary
Joel Slayton, Director, FUSE and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media,
Executive Director of Zero1

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 Sessions
Barbara Goldstein and Bob Sain
Public Art, Social Change and the New Urbanity
Over the last twenty years, artists have been using museums and public spaces as a
forum for exploring social, community, cultural and environmental issues. Barbara
Goldstein and Bob Sain will discuss temporary and permanent public art projects in
the United States that have drawn from these issues to create artworks that have
affected public space.

Dr. Robert Gifford

Changing Behavior: Closing the Feedback Loop
The Ten Dragons of Unsustainability, and How to Slay Them.
What are the barriers to increasing our pro-environmental behavior? Ultimately, no
matter which policies are implemented at the macro level, climate change and related
environmental problems can only be ameliorated one person (or one organization)
at a time: each person on the planet makes daily choices, and it is the aggregation of
these billions of choices that will determine many environmental outcomes. Gener-
ally, the focus has been on “10 things you can do.” However, because so many people
are not doing as much as they might, the important question to answer first is, “Why
are you not doing what you could do?” This talk will describe the “ten dragons of
unsustainability” and offer some ways to overcome them, so we can actually get to
“what you really can do.”

Dr. Saul Griffith

The Game Plan—Making Climate Protection Personal
The average American uses 11,400 Watts of power continuously. This is the equiva-
lent of burning 114 x100 Watt light bulbs, all the time. The average person globally
uses 2,255 Watts of power, or a little less than 23 x100 Watt light bulbs.

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Climate Clock San José
 What are the consequences of us all using this much power?
What is the implied challenge of global warming in terms of how we produce power?
What are the things we do as individuals in terms of using power that we might
change?

Wattzon.org hosts a document that gives us a framework for thinking about these
challenges, and how we might change our behaviors as individuals as well as our col-
lective behavior as societies and global citizens, if we are to meet the great challenge
of the 21st century—how to live in a world where we increasingly understand the
resources to be finite, and the consequences of our actions complex and intertwined.

What temperature do we set climate change at? What CO2 concentration does
this imply we need to aim at? How much power can we get from fossil fuels while
still meeting this goal? How much power do we need to install and produce from
non-carbon technologies? What does this mean for countries, corporations, and
individuals?

Dr. Peter Brewer and Dr. Jim Barry

The Realities of Climate Change
Climate change associated with rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are
beginning to have noticeable and significant effects on the Earth system and its
marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Effects include rising temperatures on land and in
the ocean, contraction of ice sheets, changes in the distribution of rainfall, increased
frequency and intensity of storms, acidification of ocean waters by the absorption
of excess carbon dioxide, and expansion and intensification of low-oxygen zones of
the oceans. Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are responding to changing climate
in several ways, such as the migration of species ranges, including human pathogens,
shifts in biological productivity on land and in the oceans, and widespread bleaching
and loss of coral reefs. While most assume that climate change occurs mostly on land,
the oceans actually play a pivotal and dominant role in the climate system, both sta-
bilizing climate by absorbing much (50%) of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere as
well as most (80%) of the excess heat. We provide an overview of changes in the CO2
content of the atmosphere, linkages with global climate and ocean chemistry, then
discuss the real and potential consequences of ongoing and future climate change on
terrestrial and marine ecosystems and society.

Dr. James Bellingham, Dr. Bette Otto-Bliesner and Dr. Marc Fischer
The Data Challenge
This panel will review the challenges associated with collecting information that
unambiguously and honestly portrays the changing climate of our planet. Lessons
learned from collecting climate data over the last several decades, during which time
scientists have worked to separate the small but important climate signal from a
background of large natural variability, will be discussed. The challenges of predict-
ing climate will be introduced, explaining why current models have difficulty making
predictions about specific consequences of warming such as changes in precipitation.
Finally, the highly interconnected nature of the climate system will be discussed;
explaining why changes in remote and hostile locations such as the Arctic Ocean
have consequences for the entire planet.

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Climate Clock San José
 Steve Bishop
Sustainable Design: Lessons Learned
IDEO shares what’s been learned (so far) about the intersection of sustainability and
design thinking. Through examples and research, this presentation highlights oppor-
tunities to design desire for sustainable offerings that are often overlooked in favor
of more tangible supply-side efficiencies.

Eric Paulos and Steve Landau

The Challenge of New Technologies
As scientists we struggle to understand, test and envision scenarios of our tech-
nological future. But as humans we have a collective higher calling—an ethical
responsibility to acknowledge, address and improve our own health, the health of
our environment, and promote more sustainable lifestyles. There exists both synergy
and tension between the progress of technology and environmental concerns. There
is little doubt that technology is able to play a vital role in the positive environmental
transformation. But as scientists and citizens in this evolving field of environmental
awareness and sustainability, we find more questions than answers. What are the big
challenges? Are there standard approaches we can share? What will really matter?
And what role will technology play? In this panel we explore the limits, potentials
and consequences of new empowering technologies and real environmental change.

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Speakers
James Barry
Jim Barry, with a background in biological oceanography and marine ecology, is a
senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) whose
research program focuses on the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems. 
After training at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Barry joined the science staff
at the MBARI in the early 1990s.  In addition to climate change, his research interests
are broad, spanning topics such as; 1) the biology and ecology of chemosynthetic bio-
logical communities in the deep-sea, 2) coupling between upper ocean and seafloor
ecosystems in polar and temperate environments, 3) the biology of deep-sea com-
munities, and 4) the biology of submarine canyon communities.  For the past several
years, Barry’s program has centered on studies of the effects of ocean warming and
ocean acidification on marine ecosystems, including direct carbon sequestration in
the deep-sea, and the passive influx of fossil carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
through the sea surface. Barry has helped inform Congress on ocean acidification,
ocean carbon sequestration and climate change by speaking at congressional brief-
ings and meetings with congressional members.

James Bellingham
James G. Bellingham is the chief technologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute. His personal research activity revolves around the development
and use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). In the process of developing
these vehicles, he spent considerable time at sea, leading over 20 AUV expedi-
tions. Bellingham leads the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN) program
at MBARI, which uses fleets of autonomous vehicles to adapt to and observe rapidly
changing oceanographic processes. 

Bellingham received his Ph.D. in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

in 1988. He is a co-founder of Bluefin Robotics Corporation in 1997, a leading manu-

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Climate Clock San José
 facturer of AUVs for the military, commercial and scientific markets. Bluefin was pur-
chased by Battelle Memorial Corporation in 2005, where he remains a member of the
Strategic Advisory Group.

Steve Bishop
Steve Bishop is a global lead of the Sustainability Domain at IDEO. In this role, he
focuses on applying design thinking to the issues of sustainability for IDEO clients as
well as IDEO itself. Having led several projects, Bishop’s experience ranges across sev-
eral industries including automotive, energy, consumer products and medical devices.
He’s helped design high-end award-winning office furniture, instrument panels for
hybrid electric vehicles, and medical devices, for which he holds patents.
Since earning a masters in product design from Stanford University, Bishop has
returned to teach design engineering. In 2007, he launched a new course at Stanford
on design for sustainability. He has written articles for Harvard Business Review
Online, Men’s Health, Rotman Magazine and others, and speaks regularly on the
topic of sustainability at conferences and universities.

Peter Brewer
Dr. Peter Brewer is an ocean chemist, and senior scientist, at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). Prior to joining MBARI in 1991 he spent 24
years as a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, rising to the
rank of senior scientist. He served as Program Manager for Ocean Chemistry at the
National Science Foundation 1981-1983, receiving the NSF Sustained Superior Per-
formance Award. He has taken part in more than 30 deep-sea cruises, and has served
as chief scientist on major expeditions and on more than 70 ROV dives with MBARI
ships and vehicles. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Internationally he has served
as a member of SCOR, and as Vice-Chair of JGOFS. He has served as a member of vice-
president Gore’s Environmental Task Force, and as a member of MEDEA. He served as
president of the Ocean Sciences Section of AGU from 1994-1996.

At MBARI Brewer served as president and chief executive officer from 1991-1996,
completing major laboratory and SWATH ship construction programs and doubling
the size of the Institution before returning to full-time research. His research inter-
ests are broad, and include the ocean geochemistry of the greenhouse gases. He has
devised novel techniques both for measurement and for extracting the oceanic sig-
natures of global change. At MBARI his current interests include the geochemistry of
gas hydrates, and the evolution of the oceanic fossil fuel CO2 signal. He has devel-
oped novel techniques for deep ocean laser Raman spectroscopy, and for testing the
principles and impacts of deep ocean CO2 injection. He is author or co-author of
more than 130 scientific papers and editor of several books.

Tim Dye
Tim Dye joined Sonoma Technology, Inc. (STI) in 1990 and is responsible for strate-
gic planning and management of STI’s forecasting/public outreach, meteorological
analysis, and radar wind profiler (RWP) business areas. Dye has managed all of STI’s
ozone mapping and forecasting programs including the Sacramento, California,
ozone forecasting program (1996-2006); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
(EPA’s) West Coast Mapping Center (1999-2001); and the EPA’s AIRNow program
(2002-2006). He led the development of forecasting programs for both ozone and
particulate matter (PM) throughout the United States and internationally. Dye

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Climate Clock San José
 was lead author for the EPA’s guidance document for setting up ozone and PM2.5
forecasting programs; he also developed a wide range of objective forecasting tools
to predict air quality.

Seth Fearey
Seth Fearey spent 20 years in a variety of management positions at Hewlett-Packard. 
His experience in measurement, semiconductor, computer and software business
units, plus ten years at HP Laboratories, exposed him to a broad array of technolo-
gies and innovative thinkers.  In the early 1990’s he was a champion of the Internet,
serving as a member of the board of Smart Valley Inc., a non-profit organization he
helped found.  Today he is the COO and a VP at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network
in San José. He has assembled a team of staff members from 44 cities, counties and
special districts in Silicon Valley to form the Climate Protection Task Force to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions from municipal operations.  In his nearly non-existent
spare time, he hangs out at his apartment in the Chianti Classico district in Tuscany.

Marc Fischer
Dr. Marc Fischer is a staff scientist with the Atmospheric Sciences Department at
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in the Depart-
ment of Geography and Environmental Studies at California State University East
Bay.  Fischer’s research focuses on measurements and modeling of human-ecosys-
tem-atmosphere processes involving trace gases with an emphasis on responses
and feedbacks to global change.  Fischer’s recent work has included development of
a laser-based eddy covariance instrument to measure fluxes of NH3 at field scales,
planning and implementation of methods to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from
California, improving the spatiotemporal resolution of fossil fuel CO2 combustion
maps for the continental U.S., and measurements of carbon cycle response to prai-
rie burning in the Southern Great Plains.  Dr. Fischer earned his doctorate degree in
physics from the University of California Berkeley.

Robert Gifford
Dr. Robert Gifford  is professor of psychology and environmental studies at the Uni-
versity of Victoria, editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, president of the
Environmental Psychology Division of the International Association of Applied Psy-
chology, past president of APA Division 34 (Population and Environment), fellow of
the American Psychological Association, fellow of the Association for Psychological
Science, and Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. He has taught envi-
ronmental psychology for over 30 years.

Gifford’s research interests are at the interface of environmental psychology, social

psychology, and personality psychology. He conducts studies on societal problems
that meet high scientific standards.Gifford’s main current activities are editing the
Journal of Environmental Psychology, conducting studies on resource management
(commons dilemmas and social dilemmas), personality and nonverbal behavior, eco-
logical issues such as environmental activism and pro-environmental behavior, and
the meaning and liveability of neighbourhoods. He teaches graduate and under-
graduate courses in environmental psychology and consumer psychology. He is the
author of Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice (4th ed., 2007) published by
Optimal Books.

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Climate Clock San José
 Barbara Goldstein
Barbara Goldstein is the public art director for the City of San José Office of Cultural
Affairs and the editor of Public Art by the Book, a primer recently published by Ameri-
cans for the Arts and the University of Washington Press.  Prior to her work in San
José, Goldstein was public art director for the City of Seattle.  Goldstein has worked
as a cultural planner, architectural and art critic, editor and publisher.  From 1989 to
1993, she was director of Design Review and Cultural Planning for the Los Angeles
Department of Cultural Affairs.  From 1980-85 she edited and published Arts + Archi-
tecture magazine.  She has written for art and architectural magazines both nationally
and internationally, and has lectured on public art throughout the United States, and
in Canada, Japan, China and Taipei. 

Saul Griffith
Dr. Saul Griffith has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engi-
neering and completed his Ph.D. in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating
machines at MIT.  He is the co-founder of numerous companies including: Optiopia,
Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons and Makani Power.  Griffith has
been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall
of Fame, Collegiate Inventor’s award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize.  Recently
Griffith has been named a MacArthur Fellow. A large focus of his research efforts
are in minimum and constrained energy surfaces for novel manufacturing techniques
and other applications.  He holds multiple patents and patents pending in textiles,
optics, nanotechnology and energy production.  Griffith co-authors children’s comic
books called HowToons about building your own science and engineering gadgets
with Nick Dragotta and Joost Bonsen. He is a technical advisor to Make magazine
and Popular Mechanics, and is a columnist and regular contributor to Make and Craft
magazines.

Don Kassing
As president of San José State University, Don W. Kassing heads the oldest and
one of the largest universities in the 23-campus California State University system.
Appointed in 2004, Kassing has moved the university forward in several key areas.
Under his leadership, the campus is engaged in university-wide strategic planning,
with the goal of making San José State University a university of choice by 2010.

During the 2006-2007 academic year, San José State received $50 million in private
gifts, leading the CSU system in private giving for the first time. The banner giving
year capped a three-year giving total of $100 million. As president and in his former
role as vice president for administration and finance, Kassing led the development,
construction and successful opening of two major campus facilities: the award-
winning Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, based on a first-of-its-kind and highly
successful partnership with the city of San José; and Campus Village, a state-of-the-
art residence complex for students, faculty and staff, the largest such project in the
California State University system, and the focus of a renewed sense of community
on the campus.

Kassing holds an M.B.A. and a B.S. in Economics from St. Louis University. He is mar-
ried with three children and eight grandchildren.

Steve Landau
Steve Landau is a Bay Area native and has spent more than twenty years working
with established and start-up companies in the software, database, dotcom and
solid-state lighting industries. Landau joined Lumileds in 2001 and has participated

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Climate Clock San José
 in the growth of the power LED market. He is a frequent author and contributor with
articles that address the changes, challenges and opportunities for solid-state light-
ing in a wide variety of applications. Landau attended UC Davis and now lives in San
José, CA.

Bette Otto-Bliesner
Bette Otto-Bliesner received her M.S. and Ph.D. in meteorology from the University
of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmo-
spheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder Colorado. Her research is focused on using
computer-based models of Earth’s climate to investigate past climate change and
climate variability across a wide range of time scales. Otto-Bliesner is particularly
interested in climate change forced naturally over the glacial-interglacial cycles of
the last million years.

She serves on the Scientific Steering Committees for the International Geosphere-
Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Past Global Changes (PAGES) and the Paleoclimate
Modeling Intercomparison Project PMIP2. She was a lead author for “Chapter 6,
Paleoclimate,” of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which received the Nobel
Peace Prize in 2008 and a committee member for the National Academy of Sciences
report on “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 1000-2000 Years: Syn-
thesis of Current Understanding and Challenges for the Future.”

Otto-Bliesner is active in education and outreach activities. She is a member of the

NCAR Exhibits Science Advisory Committee. She has been involved in American
Geophysical Union activities, including serving as the first chair of the Paleocean-
ography and Paleoclimatology Focus Group, and on the committee that drafted the
revised AGU Position Statement on the “Human Impacts on Climate.” For more infor-
mation on her work and links to her publications, please see: http://www.cgd.ucar.
edu/ccr/ottobli/

Eric Paulos
Eric Paulos is a senior research scientist at Intel in Berkeley, California where he is
the founder and director of the Urban Atmospheres research group—challenged to
employ innovative methods to explore urban life and the future fabric of emerging
technologies across public urban landscapes. His areas of expertise span a deep body
of research territory in urban computing, sustainability, green design, environmen-
tal awareness, social telepresence, robotics, physical computing, interaction design,
persuasive technologies and intimate media. Paulos is a leading figure in the field of
urban computing and is a regular contributor, editorial board member and reviewer
for numerous professional journals and conferences. Paulos received his Ph.D. in
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley where he helped
launch a new robotic industry by developing some of the first internet tele-operated
robots including Space Browsing helium filled blimps and Personal Roving Presence
devices (PRoPs).

Chuck Reed
Chuck Reed is the 64th mayor of San José, elected on November 7, 2006. Reed was
born and raised in the small farming town of Garden City, Kansas. His family lived in
a public housing project, teaching him from an early age the importance of govern-
ment aide for working families. A strong work ethic was evident during childhood
as Chuck took jobs sweeping floors while still in elementary school, digging ditches,
shoveling gravel and working in the fields before becoming a teenager and working
part time operating a bulldozer and driving an 18-wheeler semi truck while in high

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Climate Clock San José
 school. Chuck left Kansas to attend the United States Air Force Academy and served
in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He received a master’s degree in public affairs
from Princeton University and graduated from Stanford Law School.

As mayor of San José, Chuck is committed to improving the quality of life in the
city, boosting the public’s trust in local government, and fixing the City’s structural
budget deficit. Chuck and his wife, Paula, have been married for over 35 years. Paula
manages a medical clinic specializing in the care of cancer patients. They have two
children, Kim and Alex, who both attended public schools in San José. Kim is a fighter
pilot in the U.S. Air Force with more than 100 combat missions. Alex works in Wash-
ington D.C. to help prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Robert Sain
Robert Sain is Executive Director of Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California.

Joel Slayton
Joel Slayton is an artist, writer, researcher and professor at San José State University
where he is director of the Cadre Laboratory for New Media, an interdisciplinary
academic program in the School of Art and Design.  CADRE, established in 1984, is
dedicated to the development of experimental applications involving information
technology and art.  Slayton was chairperson for ISEA2006/ZER01 San José: A Global
Festival of Art on the Edge and will be the new executive director of ZER01 starting
in June of 2008.  He is the executive editor of SWITCH, http://switch.sjsu.edu CAD-
RE’s on-line journal of new media discourse and practice.  Initiated in 1995, SWITCH
has presented 19 volumes that have addressed themes such as Network Culture,
Artificial Life, Art and the Military, Sound Culture, Cyber-feminism, Art as Network,
Art as Database, New Media Art Centers, Social/Networks Collaborative Models ,
and Social Computing. Slayton serves on the Board of Directors of Leonardo/ISAST
(International Society for Art, Science and Technology).  He was editor in chief of the
Leonardo-MIT Press Book Series from 1999-2005. Slayton’s research explores social
software, cooperation models and network ontology. Papers include Social Soft-
ware; Entailment Mesh, The Re=Purpose of Information, and The Ontology
of Organization as System.

Slayton is the director and founder of FUSE:cadre/montalvo artist research residency,

a platform for collaboration, experimentation, creativity and innovation focused
on emerging new media and technology. FUSE connects fine arts students from the
CADRE Laboratory in unorthodox partnerships with artists that inspire new forms
of technology-based production and experience. Through cross-discipline collabo-
rations, the residency-model provides an arena for addressing some of the most
pertinent issues of our time including, but not limited to, concerns of globalization,
sustainability, censorship, human rights, social responsibility, human centered design
and a focus on the next generation.

Considered a pioneer in the field of art and technology Slayton creates artworks
that engage with a wide range of media technology including information map-
ping, networks and interactive visualization. Slayton was an original member of
the Visible Language Workshop at MIT in the mid 1970s, has received a National
Endowment for the Arts award and was selected for the Xerox Parc Pair Artists in
Residence Program.

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Climate Clock San José
Finalists
Wired Wilderness
Greenmeme : Freya Bardell, Brian Howe and Brent Bucknum

Climate Linked Individual—Mate (CLI-mate)

Mel Chin, Joe Dahmen, Travis Franck, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Amul Goswamy and David McConville

Sound Henge
Bill Fontana, Byron Kuth and Elizabeth Ranieri

Huey-Dewey-Louie Climate Clock (an homage to the film ‘Silent Running’)

Usman Haque and Robert Davis

Organograph
Chico Macmurtrie, Geo Homsy, Bill Washabaugh and Gideon Shapiro

Climate Canopy : an Evolving Memorial

Maggie Orth, Beebe Skidmore and Joshua R. Smith

Breathing Tower
Yuji Oshima, Tobias Baldauf, Florian Otto and Marie-theres Okresek

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Climate Clock San José
 Wired Wilderness
Greenmeme : Freya Bardell, Brian Howe
and Brent Bucknum
Our work is born from a love of nature, a dedication
to reinventing urban ecologies and a fascination with
emerging technologies. Mixing technology with natural
processes has allowed us to produce living, breath-
ing and responsive artwork that informs people in a
whimsical fashion about the environmental condi-
tions of their surroundings. We create artworks that
reduce pressures on our natural resources, use alterna-
tive energy to ensure longevity and actively engage the
public through the artistic interpretations of environ-
mental data.
While we hope for the climate clock to push the
boundaries of digital, distributed networking technolo-
gies, we also see the value in the traditional, analog,
biological modes of observation and representation.
The most successful, timeless monuments have uti-
lized earths processes as a pendulum, whether it be the
changes in the rising and setting of the sun, or the rising
and falling of tides. Monuments like Stonehenge,still
strike awe in visitors, 2000 years after they were built.
A significant inspiration to our team is “digital ecolo-
gist,” Mike Hamilton, the reserve manager at Blue
Oaks Ranch Reserve, a 3000-acre UC field station, only
minutes outside of San José, that will become the first
model of a completely “wired wilderness.” According
to Hamilton, “If we had to reduce the regional eco-
system health down to one indicator that will change
dramatically over the next 100 years, it will be the oak
woodlands.” Oaks are host to one of the more docu-
mented bio-indicators, lace lichen. Scientific studies
from around the globe have shown that lichen diversity
directly correlates with air quality and human health.
Beautiful and slow growing, lichen serves a moniker
of wisdom of time, an evolving barometer of climatic
change, a biological indicator, relevant to San José, but
also a model that can be applied universally.
directly to a similar grove at Blue Oak Reserve. In juxta-
position, the reserves will serve as a “natural sensor” for
San José. As they evolve over time, visitors will observe
how the groves adapt differently with environmental
change. The human experience and memory of this nat-
ural process will be the climate clock.
While these bio-indicators are the central timepiece
for our “climate clock,” we envision the space to be
continually evolving, embracing daily environmental
and technological changes, through programming and
public participation. The monument will be a multi-sen-
sory experience, to be viewed as an art piece, meeting
place, a gallery, a site for education, communication and
observation.
Freya Bardell ecological designer and public artist
based in Los Angeles, California. She is a principal and
co-founder of Greenmeme and has served as a design
consultant for Rana Creek Living Architecture and
Farmlab.
Brian Howe is an artist and designer living in Los
Angeles, CA. After graduating from the Southern Cali-
fornia Institute of Architecture in 2006, he became
a founding principal of Greenmeme and serves as a
design and fabrication consultant to various organiza-
tions within the Los Angeles area.
Brent Bucknum, ecological designer, founder of the
Hyphae Design Laboratory in February 2008; “the lab”
is a consulting and design firm dedicated to bridging the
gap between innovative architecture and hard biologi-
cal sciences. From 2005-2008, Bucknum served as the
design director at Rana Creek, an ecological restora-
tion and design firm based in Carmel Valley, California.
Bucknum is also a member/collaborator of greenmeme,
a design firm based in Los Angeles and The Chlorophyll
Collective, an environmental education group based in
Oakland, California.

As artists, we don’t try to substitute the “senses” and

sensors of human experience, but rather frame them,
and reduce them to an understandable scale. We can
simply “set the clock” by creating a forum for the true
artistic potential of the clock to be made by the time-
keepers of natural process, the community and the
city. To do this, we propose growing an Oak and Lichen
grove in the center of San José and comparing this

14
Climate Clock San José
Climate Linked Individual—Mate (CLI-mate)
Mel Chin, Joe Dahmen, Travis Franck,
Amber Frid-Jimenez, Amul Goswamy
and David McConville
If climate change is the most urgent issue of our time,
then the development of an interface to encourage,
or to be the means by which we make, those modifica-
tions, is needed now. Global warming trends must be
directly connected to the source in order to change
behavior. Our idea is to develop and implement a glob-
ally accessible widget, available to all languages through
free-ware methods, that personalizes any individual’s
connection to global climate change. The widget is
called the CLI-mate and the program that is developed
through the use of it is what is currently missing in the
computations on global climate changes.
Software response (development of an applet) as
opposed to hardware (the clock) is predicated on what
might make the most difference in curbing global cli-
mate trends - the modification of the individual. The
possibility of “e-waste” associated with the creation
of a physical technological artifact in an era of rapid
technological obsolescence promotes the more evo-
lutionarily compatible and democratic (open source)
versions of code. A non-static entity has a better
chance for growth and longevity. That being said, the
incoming ocean of global climate data that will be
mixed with the new sea of human interface will require
San José to house the server that handles the feedback
flow from the CLI-mate along with the ongoing tide of
information generated by multiple data information
sites, from NOAA to NASA.
The San José CLI-mate server will be ensconced within
a structure supporting a canopy of photo bioreac-
tor tanks, absorbing greenhouse gases and powering
hundreds of suspended small displays, working 24-7
to process information of the compounded effects
of human actions on global climatic activity. Climate
information from scientific models will react to and
reflect real-time human input gathered through the
CLI-mates delivered to the San José climate computing
station, and will be reprocessed to make it accessible
there and to every cell phone and computer that would
have it. The San José Server Structure with the algae
reactors will fuel floating mini- displays of a multitude
of constantly refreshing “comparables” that individual
users may request or that may be randomly generated.
Small scale allows personal review of individual
requests.
Professor John Sterman of MIT speaks of a new initia-
tive on behalf of the climate, more like the civil rights
movement than a technological Manhattan-like proj-
ect, as necessary to salvage a world in trouble. The
CLI-mate Project could be one of the buses to drive this
movement forward. It will have the capacity to expo-
nentially expand into a community whose combined
actions will have a measurable impact on the climate.
Mel Chin is known for the broad range of approaches
in his art, including works that require multi-disciplin-
ary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin
cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas. His pro-
posal for a New World Trade Center was part of the
American representation at the 2002 Venice Biennale
of Architecture.
Joe Dahmen is an architect and one of the three
founders and chief operating officer of startup venture
Bodega Algae LLC, a developer of a scalable continu-
ous flow photobioreactor that grows large volumes of
microalgae for use in the production of biofuel.
Travis Franck is an MIT climate change researcher
and a trained software engineer. He has international
experience in climate change research and has worked
at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), an inter-governmental organiza-
tion with climate change research responsibility.
Amber Frid-Jimenez is an award-winning designer,
artist, engineer and educator, currently teaching art,
design and critical theory as a visiting lecturer at the
MIT Visual Arts Program and an adjunct professor at
the Rhode Island School of Design.
Amul Goswamy is a digital media artist and for-
mer lead software developer at Apple Inc. Goswamy
is currently studying engineering education at Tufts
University.
David McConville is a media artist and researcher
specializing in the development of dome-based display
technologies. He is co-founder of The Elumenati (www.
elumenati.com), a full-service design and engineering
firm specializing in the development and deploy-
ment of immersive visualization environments and
experiences.
15
Climate Clock San José
 Sound Henge
Bill Fontana, Byron Kuth and Elizabeth Ranieri
The team’s approach to the design of San José’s Climate
Clock creates a place of physical repose and contempla-
tion, connecting downtown San José, in real time, to 12
significant ecological habitats around the world. This
work will transmit live sounds from these global envi-
ronments as well as display live visual data for a variety
conditions: The earth’s Carbon Dioxide Levels, Ozone
Levels, Temperature change, etc. The proposal is as
much an instrument for listening and learning as it is a
civic space for refuge and contemplation. The team will
work collaboratively on all aspects of the design of the
Climate Clock, with Bill Fontana recording and direct-
ing the selection and implementation of the live audio
component and Kuth/Ranieri Architects designing and
managing the physical structure and implementation of
visual data.
The primal form of the enclosure will resonate with
live sound from remote environments. Climate condi-
tions will be displayed as fluid and kinetic surfaces. All
enmesh the visitor in sensual and cerebral connection
to the global array of fragile environments.
The sustainable features of the proposal are the piers,
fabricated out of lightweight factory produced carbon
fiber from recycled airline carriers. They are laminated
on the exterior with a flexible solar PV film that powers
displays, water feature, and lighting. The interior sur-
faces are sheathed with a low voltage thin film display
system for data. Water collection is processed as grey-
water and recycled within the proposed Rotunda.
Bill Fontana has worked for the past 30 years creat-
ing installations that use sound as a sculptural medium
to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual
and architectural settings. His sound sculptures use the
human and/or natural environment as living sources of
musical information. These projects have been installed
in public spaces and museums around the world.
Kuth/Ranieri Architects was established in 1990
by Byron Kuth, AIA, LEED AP and Elizabeth Ran-
ieri, AIA, LEED AP. In addition to the two founding
principals, the KR team consists of seven staff archi-
tects and designers. The firm has a regional and national
reputation for innovative works that integrate current
cultural discourse with contemporary issues of design,
technology and environmental awareness.

The clock is designed as a freestanding Rotunda that is

composed of 12 piers based on the 12 terrestrial time
zones. They rise from the ground in a circular layout to
converge into an open oculus framing the sky. A con-
vex void is nested in the Rotunda, forming semi-circular
listening niches within the interior face of the piers.
The lining of this void carries climate data from around
the globe displayed on electronic paper. Within the
Rotunda is a water feature that provides a sound screen
and evaporative cooling.

16
Climate Clock San José
Huey-Dewey-Louie Climate Clock
(an homage to the film ‘Silent Running’)
Usman Haque and Robert Davis
Our basic assumptions:
1. That a solely data-driven approach is inappropriate,
relying too much on current philosophies & technolo-
gies; it will be self-powered & iteratively constructed,
passively measuring & dealing adaptively with unfore-
seen sensorial requirements.
2. That carbon dioxide is not the only climatic indicator
that needs tracking; future research will likely identify
new causal relationships—how these are tracked will
be collectively determined.
3. That it would be useful to encode climatic data at
various temporal resolutions so that both current
and future human generations or alien visitors might
decode & learn from it regardless of technological
development.
The Clock consists of three characters that construct
themselves over the course of days, months and years,
forming a highly legible landscape record of climatic
change & possible causes of this change. Biological
materials are extracted directly from the environment
to facilitate ongoing and future analyis.
1. Accretion Mounds: Huey Autonomously
accreted daily from light & dark materials extracted
chemically from the atmosphere, the thickness of each
carbonised/calcareous layer is proportional to the
degree of fluctuation of local environmental param-
eters, visible, like tree-rings, via colour gradations of
the deposited material. The geometric trend of the
stratigraphic conic structure is dependent upon mea-
surements of climatic change so that, viewed from
below, the sky is visible until its completion, at which
point the date will indicate the relative ‘health’ of the
global weather system—the later it closes each year the
better the global ecosphere’s ‘health.’
2. 3m3 Samples: Dewey Round the site will be 100
plinths onto which will be placed annually a sample of
air hermetically preserved in a transparent box measur-
ing 3m x 1m x 1m. At Year 0, 10,000 daffodil seeds will
be cloned from a single genetic sample. Each year, 100
will be planted on site; at year-end, a single flower and
99 compacted into a block will be placed at the base
of the sealed sample columns. The way this preserved
plant material, genetically identical through 100 years,
responded to its year’s changing climatic situation, and
the air samples, will provide useful material for future
analysis.
3. Cubic Data Packer: Louie An autonomous
machine, powered by solar panels & heat engine, grazes
round the site moving 1 cm/day, guided by local tem-
perature & wind conditions. It extracts local soil via
helical blades & fuses this daily into small cubes, each
face of which is stamped with a date & environmental
or economic measurements chosen by daily popular
public vote, including, e.g., global CO2 level, atmo-
spheric methane, rainfall, price of corn, or index of light
crude oil—whatever contemporary humans determine
to be important. The cubes through their encoded posi-
tions record both local & global daily environmental
conditions.
Robert Davis is a systems developer in the Psychol-
ogy Department of Goldsmiths College, University
of London, particularly interested in systems that are
contingent upon the environment and the entities that
inhabit it, and the adaption within such systems. His
particular interests include analog neural networks and
chemical systems.
Usman Haque is an architect who has created respon-
sive environments, interactive installations, digital
interface devices and mass-participation performances.
His skills include the design of both physical spaces and
the software and systems that bring them to life.
17
Climate Clock San José
 Organograph
Chico MacMurtrie, Geo Homsy, Bill Washabaugh
and Gideon Shapiro
Organograph is an ever-changing, participatory sculp-
ture that invites the public to observe and respond to
the processes of climate change. Visually and physically
inviting, it functions as a captivating civic beacon as
well as a flexible instrument of scientific measurement,
public education and individual experience. The total
mechanism of the sculpture responds to and provides a
window into worldwide climate data.
A spectacular clock-like system of interconnecting
exhibit orbs, liquid flows and mechanical movement
illustrates the dynamic equilibrium of energy and
mass flow in the biosphere. Equilibrium carbon is rep-
resented as green liquid, interconverted between
biomass in the Spiral Incubator, and CO2 in the Vapor
Room. Out-of-equilibrium carbon is drawn from the
Fossil Fuel Reserve, channeled through the Motor of
Civilization, and deposited as excess carbon in the
Vapor Room.
The entire sculpture moves two meters per year along
a spiral trench, leaving in its wake a living garden and
a trail paved with archival culture bricks made of glas-
sified garbage. The width of the trail forms a graph,
representing the historical levels of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere. The future is represented by a curving
reflecting pool. Visitors enter the sculpture via a single
stairway, representing the rise of industrialization as
well as the progression of the greenhouse effect. At
the top, in the humid Vapor Orb, visitors may choose
to descend by way of one of two stairs: the oil depen-
dency future, or the sustainable future. This journey of
discovery is guided by the interactive Learning Atom.
These user-specific tokens, using RFID technology, con-
nect to a live database that is continually updated in
collaboration with scientific research institutions, and
present each visitor a unique interactive audiovisual
experience.
18
Climate Clock San José
In the Terrarium Sphere, plants are continually seeded,
nourished by compost carried up by visitors, and
rotated out toward the perimeter. Each day at noon, a
plant travels down a chute from this Spiral Incubator
and is replanted in the Time Trail Garden. The atmo-
sphere inside the incubator—and hence the health of
the exterior Garden—fluctuates in response to global
atmospheric conditions. The sun is the sole energy
source for the project. Photovoltaic arrays and solar
thermal collectors are clustered along the three great
unfolding sculptural petals that dramatically open each
morning and close each night.
Chico Macmurtrie is renowned for his evocative
expressions of time, movement and the human-made
environment. Together with his collaborative studio
of artists, technicians and programmers—known as
Amorphic Robot Works—he has exhibited work in 15
different countries since 1992.
Geo Homsy is a founding partner of the information
architecture firm Permabit, and a partner in the multi-
disciplinary design firm Squid Labs. An accomplished
inventor and developer of nanotechnology, he holds
four patents in the field of computer science.
Bill Washabaugh has worked as senior mechanical
engineer for New York-based Arnell Group, and as a
senior design engineer for Genie Industries and Chef’n
Corporation in Seattle.
Gideon Shapiro, architectural writer, researcher and
designer, works for the Manhattan-based architectural
firm of Gabellini Sheppard Associates.
Climate Canopy : an Evolving Memorial
Maggie Orth, Beebe Skidmore and Joshua R. Smith
The San José Climate Clock (SJCC) is a groundbreaking
public artwork which comes at a defining moment in
human and art history. The world is awakening to the
fact that human actions are dramatically affecting the
environment and causing rapid climate change. The
actions we take today to prevent climate change will be
the defining historical events of our time. At the same
time, technology and digital media are revolutionizing
access to information, human communication, and cre-
ating radically new, time-based art forms. The SJCC lies
at the crux of these historical forces. It is a new type
of public artwork which challenges artists to combine
complex data and time-based digital media, with the
tradition of permanent landmarks, memorials and site-
specific art, while motivating the public into positive
action to prevent climate change.
Seen through this lens, our proposal is an evolv-
ing memorial which layers 3 elements: a permanent,
carbon-like, memorial material, into which an algorith-
mically generated pattern based on the climate-saving
actions of the San José community over 100 years is
etched; a robotic etcher whose activity records and
reflects the current positive actions of the commu-
nity; and an addressable, netted LED array that displays
predictions of the climate future based on the current
actions of the community. At the end of 100 years a
permanent memorial to actions of San José during this
critical time will have been created.
This architecturally scaled work takes the form of a
canopy whose material seams create the grid of a 100
year calendar. Each block of the canopy grid represents
one season or quarter. As the community takes posi-
tive action toward climate change, the dark, carbon-like
material (made from recycled materials such as glass or
rubber), is etched away from the canopy, revealing the
sky above and allowing light to reach the ground below.
The more action the community takes, the more dark
material is removed, revealing more light.
Small, individual actions take the form of small dots.
Larger, community, technological and government
actions take the form of large dots. Dots are then ran-
domly placed with a Monte Carlo algorithm, creating
a celestial effect. The future of the climate, based on
quarterly actions, is predicted by the LED array layer,
which displays a dynamic and impressionistic, cloud-
like visualization. The more actions San José takes, the
brighter the LED pattern and the less clouds. The robot
and LEDs are powered by solar cells integrated into the
canopy structure. On line, viewers can use a GUI ver-
sion of the robot arm to scroll through each city’s clock,
accessing the specific climate data and community
actions of each quarter, and observing how the actions
of each season predict a different future. An educa-
tional kiosk, located at the future end of the canopy,
draws the viewer through the canopy and the covered
park-like space, and provides an opportunity to access
the climate data on line.
Maggie Orth is an artist and technologist who cur-
rently directs design and research at International
Fashion Machines, her Seattle-based studio.
Doug Skidmore & Heidi Beebe joined forces in 2007
to start Beebe Skidmore, a practice in architecture.
By focusing on proportion, scale and quality, their work
takes a practical and economical approach, emphasiz-
ing thoughtful planning and real solutions.
Joshua R. Smith is a principal engineer at Intel’s
Research laboratory in Seattle, WA, where he conducts
research in sensor physics, signal processing, robotic
grasping, robotic walking and control, and wireless
power.
19
Climate Clock San José
 Breathing Tower
Yuji Oshima, Tobias Baldauf, Florian Otto and Marie-
theres Okresek
Our interest is the everyday, the process-like and search
for the hidden potentials of free space. We aim to
explore phenomenons and translate them into specific
spaces of possibility. The built result is directly linked
to its generic process. Designing and using are viewed
as creative phase-delayed observational acts. Real-
ity becomes a way of reading the environment. In this
reading three aspects are of superordinate importance
to us. The concept as a request for action deducted
from the approach to the site and its phenomenology;
the space as space of possibility with specific inherent
qualities; and atmosphere as accentuated and amplified
ambiental character. We conceive dealing with social
phenomenons overlaid with the temporal aspects in
landscape designs as a contribution to urban culture.
No sign can visualize the climate and bring it to our
minds better than natural elements themselves and
their interference in the environment. Like our usual
time measurement has two scales, for minutes and for
hours, we would like to show the passing time in two
ways. An interactive cloud as a short time display and
the annual ring of a tree as a long-term database such as
dendrochronology.
Our proposition presents a mysteriously flying gar-
den mounted on top of a tower. The garden will be
equipped with a sensor which can measure the air qual-
ity of San José and its surroundings. Those sensors
will show immediate action in case of less air quality
and produce water mist (200 microns) by several jet
nozzles. The volume of water mist is preciously con-
trolled by a computer. In case of high CO2 level, this
effect will be seen as a cumulus cloud when the tower
is literally misted over with fog. However, with good air
quality the garden itself can be seen from far distance.
A Ginkgo tree, as one of the oldest witnesses of our
earth’s history (some of them are over 1,000 years old),
will be planted to register the seasons with its leaves
and the climate in its trunk. The scientists have found
Ginkgo leaves in fossils of the Paleozoic era. In this Cli-
mate Clock Project, we propose to cultivate the Ginkgo
tree for the next 100 years under changing climate con-
ditions. While technology to observe climate change
will advance and ask for new technical device (formats),
the Ginkgo tree will record carefully year by year the
climate development as annual rings in its body.
The height of the tower will be defined by the Sea Level
Rise. In the IPCC Assessment Report, Climate Change
2001 scientists expect a 68.2m sea level rise in case
of total ice melting of Greenland and Antarctica. The
height of the tower according to these results will thus
also operate as an admonishment, imagining San José
being 42.2m under water. The treelike trunk carrying
the garden consists of an elevator or staircase through
which the visitors are brought up to the top to over-
look the Silicon Valley. People can use the space as their
garden, park or playground. The plants growing in the
park depend partly on the climate condition due to the
humidity being dispersed by the nozzles.
The people of San José will see day by day from any
point of town a 3D weather forecast from the flying
garden with its artificial display of air measurement
results. As this cloud will cover the garden like a smog
or gas, the effect of human activity will be a signal to
the people, but also reward them with a clear view on
good air condition days. Our proposal is not only to
collect and show the climate change data but also to
cultivate new results by comparing different vegeta-
tion due to dry and humid air conditions. We consider
Breathing Tower as living public art.
Yuji Oshima is a Vienna-based artist and is working
in sound installations and new media projects. His site
specific multimedia elevator installation is part of the
collection of the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs rue
Saint-Honoré in Paris.
Tobias Baldauf is a landscape architect, dipl.ing. He
teaches at the eth Zürich, department of landscape
architecture. In 2001 he founded his own business—
Bauchplan with Marie-Theres Okresek.
Florian Otto is a landscape architect, dipl.ing. He
teaches at the eth Zürich, department of landscape
architecture and is a partner at Bauchplan.
Marie-theres Okresek is a landscape architect, dipl.
ing. She teaches at Universität für Bodenkultur, depart-
ment of landscape architecture, Vienna. In 2001 she
founded her own business—Bauchplan with Tobias
Baldauf.

20
Climate Clock San José
Campus Map
Colloquium sponsored by