Smoke and Mirrors is an art installation that visualizes six decades of rising methane levels (Smoke) alongside advertising campaigns from the Big Oil industry (Mirrors) intended to deny, doubt, and delay the climate data.
The project pairs methane emissions, which are increasingly linked to the Smoke and Mirrors is an art installation that visualizes six decades of rising methane levels (Smoke) alongside advertising campaigns from the Big Oil industry (Mirrors) intended to deny, doubt, and delay the climate data. The project pairs methane emissions, which are increasingly linked to the big oil industry, with slogans such as Amoco’s Out to clean the air and Shell’s Net-Zero, highlighting the stark contrast between environmental impact and corporate messaging. The visualization is based on NASA’s iconic Blue Marble image and runs from 1970, our first Earth Day, to the present day. It is set to and enhanced by the song Oh My Heart, which was released as the world’s first bioplastic record, to further activate and humanize the data. This artwork continues Wolfe’s theme of using powerful visual narratives to present climate data, previously investigated in her CO2 visualization From Green to Red, a reimagining of which is currently projected onto the facade of the Ars Electronica Center daily from 9 PM to midnight. In addition to tracing the history of methane emissions, Smoke and Mirrors critiques the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long playbook used to deny, doubt, and delay recognition of environmental damage, and makes a compelling case for the urgent need to tackle climate misinformation.
Credit: Visualization produced in collaboration with Parliament