Winners for 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative for Freshkills Park.

1st Place Winner for LAGI 2012: Scene-Sensor // Crossing Social and Ecological Flows
Artist Team: James Murray, Shota Vashakmadze
Artist Location: Atlanta, USA
Energy Technologies: Piezoelectric Generators (Thin Film and Embedded Wire)
Annual Capacity: 5,500 MWh
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Artist Descriptive Text: Key interactions of human and ecological energies, above and below the surface of Freshkills, drive complex environmental flows, allowing us to question how to sense, channel, and harness their energies in a productive tension, revealing their interconnected fluctuations in beneficial ways. Scene-Sensor situates itself at the intersection of flows joining and separating opposing landforms: as a channel screen, harnessing the flows of wind through the tidal artery, and as vantage points, staging crosswise pedestrian flows through the park, the two acting in combination as a mirror-window, reflecting and revealing the scene of Freshkills’ fluctuating landscape back to itself. more...

2nd Place Winner for LAGI 2012: Fresh Hills
Artist Team: Matthew Rosenberg Structural Engineering Consultant: Matt Melnyk Production Assistants: Emmy Maruta, Robbie Eleazer Artist Location: Los Angeles, USA
Energy Technologies: WindTamer, Carbon Dioxide Scrubber, SmartWrap
Annual Capacity: 238 MWh
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Artist Descriptive Text: As we approach Fresh Hills, the undulating mounds appear to be natural elements growing from the earth. The closer we get, however, it is clear that this structure, like the mounds below it, are not native to the recently capped Fresh Kills Landfill site. Its form rests lightly on the existing topography and creates definition across the expansive horizon. It caresses the East mound, creating a seamless integration between utility-scale energy harnessing and a program-filled landscape. It creates a harmonious relationship between earth and wind. Fresh Hills is a remedy for the typical turbine farm that so often isolates the landscape and discourages communities from engaging the space. more...

3rd Place Mention for LAGI 2012: PIVOT
Artist Team: Yunxin Hu and Ben Smith
Artist Location: Atlanta, USA
Energy Technologies: Piezoelectric disks and fabric
Annual Capacity: 1,200 MWh
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Artist Descriptive Text: Central to Freshkills’ future is the fluctuating nature of its two key conditions—the gradual sinking of its landfill and rising of its surrounding sea level—making our challenge how to transform these potential problems into opportunities for land art. PIVOT answers with two intertwining operations: a floating ‘terra nova’ constructed at the moving line between these conditions that frame it while replacing lost terrain; and a gathering of the human and wind energies flowing along ‘the Kill/Confluence.’ more...

4th Place Mention for LAGI 2012: 99 Red Balloons
Artist Team: Emeka Nnadi, Scott Rosin, Meaghan Hunter, Danielle Loeb, Kara McDowell, Indrajit Mitra, Narges Ayat, Denis Fleury
Artist Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Energy Technologies: Solar panels and piezoelectric panels
Annual Capacity: 14,000 MWh
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Artist Descriptive Text: “99 dreams I have had, In everyone a red balloon, It’s all over and I’m standin’ pretty In this dust that was a city. If I could find a souvenir Just to prove the world was here And here is a red balloon I think of you, and let it go” (99 Luftballoons, Nena, 1984.)

An excerpt from the 1984 song "99 Red Balloons", this verse evokes visions of loss, hope, memory, and the perseverance of dreams for a redemptive and meaningful future. Inspired by these images, 99 Red Balloons is a thoughtful proposal for a metaphorical souvenir — proof that something redeeming and beautiful can rise out of the ‘dust’ that has been placed on the land by human activity and the accumulation of society’s waste. more...