Digital Ice Core is a new media art project that brings gallery viewers in contact with Arctic sea ice. Using electronics, data and satellite communication, it links electronics deployed by the artist at a remote field site with a digital light sculpture, enabling viewers to see the ambient light in the air, ice and ocean below in close to real time. Digital Ice Core [Field], 2019. Nylon, electronics, battery and sensors. 19 cm tall, and 20 cm wide, 4.2 kg. Digital Ice Core [Gallery], 2019. Acrylic, aluminum, LED lights and electronics. 3.2 m tall, 33 cm wide, 22 kg.

Digital Ice Core is a new media art project that brings gallery viewers in contact with Arctic sea ice. Using electronics, data and satellite communication, it links electronics deployed by the artist at a remote field site with a digital light sculpture, enabling viewers to see the ambient light in the air, ice and ocean below in close to real time. On April 5 2019, a custom sensor installation was placed by Cy Keener on a piece of multi-year sea ice near Utqiagvik, Alaska. A five cm diameter, 2 m deep hole was drilled through the ice, and a set of 3.2m light and temperature sensors were threaded through the ice, into the ocean below. These sensors were supported by a custom designed enclosure holding electronics, a battery and a satellite modem. Each day at 12:30pm local time, light and temperature readings are collected over the length of the sensors. These readings are transmitted via satellite, and the light sculpture shows ice thickness in pulsing light, using the corresponding RGB values from the sensors. The ocean below is indicated with a flickering blue light.

One of the goals of this project was to see if it was possible to design and build a science grade buoy that could survive extreme Arctic conditions using a ‘maker’ approach to fabrication and open source or free software. The buoy was modeled using a mix of Grasshopper, Fusion 360, and Eagle. The heart of the project is a custom circuit board designed in Eagle from a mash-up of open source design files from Adafruit and Arduino. The Eagle file was then imported into Fusion 360, and the enclosure was designed around it as well as a cold weather battery, satellite modem and sensors. Multiple options for the exterior surface were coded in Grasshopper, with the aesthetic goal of having a simple form disrupted or disturbed by wave-like patterns. These Fusion and Grasshopper models were brought together through Meshmixer, and the result was 3D printed on a nylon 3D printer at the Autodesk Technology Center in Toronto. The Digital Ice Core data visualization light sculpture was modeled in Fusion 360, and fabricated using stock parts, water jet cut parts, and hand techniques. The light comes from over 1,200 RGB LEDs run by Arduino code.

Digital Ice Core [Field], 2019. Nylon, electronics, battery and sensors. 19 cm tall, and 20 cm wide, 4.2 kg. A custom printed circuit board designed and hand assembled by the artist has an Arduino microcontroller, Bosch barometric pressure sensor, GPS and Maxim DS18B2 external digital thermometer. The unit was deployed with a custom tripod to support a pair of 3.2m light and temperature strings, or flexible printed circuit boards with RGB and temperature sensors inside of waterproof heat shrink tubing. The string sensors and tripod were provided by Bruncin. Together, the deployed unit takes up an area of about one square meter. Digital Ice Core [Gallery], 2019. Acrylic, aluminum, LED lights and electronics. 3.2 m tall, 33 cm wide, 22 kg. The light tube is 10 cm wide, and made from two layers of Satinice light diffusing tube from Acrylite. Inside each tube is a square aluminum tube with three sets of 422 addressable (SK9822) LEDs. The base is 1cm thick aluminum plate, 33 cm wide. The LEDs are controlled by an Arduino, and the entire electronic system runs on 5V power.