100 Climate Conversations

As Australia’s most ambitious climate-focused cultural project, 100 Climate Conversations showcases one hundred visionary Australians taking effective action to respond to climate change, the most critical issue of our time.

Hosted by some of Australia’s most respected journalists, the conversations cover farmers sequestering soil carbon; Traditional Owners managing Country through cultural burning; architects building carbon neutral homes; and much more.

The one hundred conversations were recorded weekly at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and took almost two years to complete.

The audio component posed an incredible challenge and involved several distinct elements. I designed acoustic interventions for the space to enable clear interview recordings in a large, open, concrete environment, as well as the playback system for the video-wall installation.

The video wall comprised 100 screens and 24 loudspeakers mounted behind and between them. Each week, a new screen, and a new interview, was added.

The installation was designed so that all the interviews played simultaneously at low volume, distributed across multiple loudspeakers so visitors could move closer to hear individual conversations. At intervals, one randomly selected speaker was highlighted, their video brightened and their audio played at a higher level in order to encourage direct engagement with the ideas presented in that interview excerpt.

The "wall of sound" was deliberately chosen as a physical metaphor for the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community regarding human induced climate change. Stand back from the wall and there is a cacophony of voices speaking to the issues, challenges and problems that climate change is bringing to the world.

The multi-award-winning project now forms part of Powerhouse’s permanent collection as a time capsule for future generations to experience.

Explore the conversations at 100climateconversations.com