I went to my first United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2000 (COP6, Hague, NL) as part of a student climate summit sponsored by Greenpeace. I wasnʼt a student then, so instead of the regular campus organizing most students were doing, I designed and printed thousands of posters about the climate crisis and, at 22 years old, started on an individual cross-country poster posting campaign. My posters wound up in phone booths, truck stops, and bathrooms all over the US. This is when I latched onto the idea that messages could be most effective in unexpected situations and places. Interpelled takes this idea of encountering an unexpected message a step further.
I’ve always been haunted by that the much talked about “ten year window” has gone by without the US taking reasonable responsibility in the climate crisis. I made the trip to Cancun to attend my second COP conference (this time without organizational support or accreditation) to do an underground sound art project on that 10 year anniversary.
During the fall of 2010, I began my research, struggled unsuccessfully to secure an accreditation pass to COP16, and experimented with a hypersonic sound device. HSS (hypersonic sound) is a directional speaker (also known as a parametric speaker) that projects a narrow beam of sound. The individual within its narrow beam will likely be the only one to hear it and all other people nearby will not. I liken it to a “sound laser” I imagined that I could use this device to creative reflective psychological space through focused sound.
As a sound artist and environmental worker, I believe sound and voice can interrupt, influence, and ultimately intervene at key moments in ways other intervention art strategies can’t. In the context of COP16, I saw – and continue to see – this strategy as having lots potential and the possibilities to yield poignant and surprising reflections and hopefully, responses.
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