Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry Pollack to present "A World Without Ice" lecture, multimedia installation, film at Michigan Tech

Iceberg Drums. Part of the installation "A World Without Ice," opening at Michigan Tech's McArdle Theatre Friday, Sept. 25. (Photo courtesy Rozsa Center)

HOUGHTON -- Michigan Technological University’s Rozsa Center in collaboration with The Department of Visual and Performing Arts, The Provost’s Office, and The Great Lakes Research Center present Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry Pollack’s lecture and multimedia installation "A World Without Ice." The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. The lecture is free, but due to limited seating reserved tickets are required.

The multimedia installation will take place in the McArdle Theatre, on the second floor of the Walker Center, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Friday, Sept. 25, to Tuesday, Sept. 29. The installation is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. A variety of additional lectures, classes, and campus forums will also take place as a part of this event, including a panel lecture and discussion at the Forestry Friday Forum from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25, in the Forestry Building G002.

Emeritus Professor of Geophysics Henry Pollack -- co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) colleagues and Al Gore -- musicians and composers Michael Gould and Steven Rush, and multimedia artist Marion Traenkle, have collaborated to create a multimedia exhibit that captures our planet’s precarious moment in global warming.

Part science, part music, part art, the collaboration is a groundbreaking, multi-sensory experience that is thought provoking and compelling. Using photographs taken at both poles of our planet by Dr. Pollack and his team, an original composition written by Dr. Rush whose patterns and structure are derived from 120 years of climate data, and an ice-melt actuated rhythm created by ten ice domes melting onto drums created by Dr. Gould, the exhibit creates a different space in which visitors can contemplate a warming planet. Using Pollack’s climate data, the music allows the listener to hear the large leaps in temperature, and the melting ice provides an immersive, beautiful, random companion sound. A film by Traenkle used photographs of both poles by Pollack and his team to provide a stunning backdrop for the installation.

Tickets for the lecture are available by phone at (906) 487-2073, online at Rozsa.mtu.edu, or in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex. Click here for a full schedule of related events.

Film: PROJECT: ICE by William Kleinert

Michigan Tech's Rozsa Center in collaboration with The Department of Visual and Performing Arts, The Provost’s Office, and The Great Lakes Research Center will present the film PROJECT: ICE by Director and Executive Producer William Kleinert at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27, at the Rozsa Center. Immediately following the screening, Kleinert will join Emeritus Professor of Geophysics Henry Pollack (co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with IPCC colleagues and Al Gore), and Dr. Guy Meadows, Great Lakes Research Center director and Robbins Professor of Sustainable Marine Engineering, in a panel discussion of the film and the ongoing "World Without Ice" multimedia installation. The movie and panel discussion are free. No tickets will be required.

PROJECT: ICE views North America’s fresh water inland ocean through the prism of ice, from the crossroads of history, science and climate change. North America’s five Great Lakes contain a staggering twenty percent of all the fresh surface water on the planet. Lake Superior by itself holds ten percent of Earth’s fresh water at the surface. The cast and crew of PROJECT: ICE explore this shared Canadian-American resource that holds a timely and telling story of geology, human movement, population growth, industrialization, cultural development, recreation and the profound impact people have had on the very environment they cherish and depend upon. Kleinert is a committed environmentalist, avid student of history and a 40-year veteran of the media business.

The "World Without Ice" presentation is supported by the Van Evera Distinguished Lecture Series.