Art to Raise Awareness of Energy Consumption

 Helsinki’s energy company Helsingin Energia and the Pixelache electronic art community invited artists in the spring of 2009 to come up with proposals for artworks related to energy consumption. The goal of the project was to make energy consumption a visible element in the city and to remind citizens that they can play an active role in energy saving. “Apart from pure information, an energy saving campaign can also be realized by means of art,” says one of the fathers of the project, Helsingin Energia’s Environmental Director Martti Hyvönen. The invitation produced eight proposals by early October, at least one of which will be implemented. The general public is welcome to join the selection process by giving their comments on the proposals to Helsingin Energia [1] (in Finnish). One of the eight proposals is Energy Fame by Miska Knapek. It stems from the idea that energy consumption is something that cannot be hidden from others. Information on energy consumption is projected onto people passing by in a public place. Human Viz by 4um is a series of unannounced happenings to visualize Helsingin Energia’s energy consumption data. The visualization is done by a group of people invited together through the social media. Personal Trainer by Elina Alatalo is a screensaver for domestic use that shows a household’s energy consumption, using real-time data to produce a comparison between the current consumption and the consumption a year earlier. The screensaver can also be used as an interactive artwork. The current project is a follow-up of similar collaboration by Helsingin Energia and Pixelache in 2008, which produced an artwork titled Nuage Vert (“green cloud”) by HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen). Outflowing steam from the Helsingin Energia Salmisaari powerplant was used as a screen for protected images that reflected the neighboring areas’ power consumption. Nuage Vert was awarded with the Golden Nica prize of Ars Electronica 2008 and was chosen as the Finnish Environmental artwork of 2008. [1] http://www.helen.fi/yritys/pikseli2_teokset.html