In a bid to remind the ignorant people of the world about the threat of global warming, artist Brian Goggin is setting out to drag a two-ton block of 100,000-year-old ice from Greenland to New York City. Because breathless confusion is the first step in advocacy.
Goggin likens the whole project to a quest for the Holy Grail. Right. Monty Python where are you? Seriously, confused doesn’t even cover this entire undertaking, because the methods he plans to employ are out-of-this-world batshit. He means to chisel this beast out of the ice with “Ancient Egyptian-inspired” tools. To fashion it after the foundations stones of the Great Pyramid of Giza, obviously. He’s then gonna have men, dogs, and maybe oxen… no wait! A sail kite! He’ll use a sail kite to aid in the journey. And after that’s done, he’ll stick the thing on a boat. What? No giant turtle to help you?
He then wants to tour the US with his giant ice cube before settling finally in New York. I picture chains and airplanes straight out of King Kong for this. Sub-zero glycol solution will be used to keep the ice frozen. And after all is said and done, he’ll permanently preserve it. For 488 years. Behind a laser grid, like it’s out of a fucking comic book. It’s at this point that you realise that sustaining this “spectacle” far outweighs whatever flimsy point he was trying to make.
I’m sorry, but this is so so stupid. I mean, the whole thing screams Cecil B. Demille, but in the worst possible ways. Who cares about a giant block of ice? Couldn’t your energies be far better spent elsewhere, like at the spot where your point stopped making sense? Couldn’t you at least try to look for dragons in the ice or something? Honestly. [SF Weekly]
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