In 2004, I took my first trip above the Norwegian Arctic Circle with my then two-year-old son in tow. I knew then that I could never not return.

In 2010, I entered the Arctic landscape of Svalbard after working a year to get there. My first grant, awarded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was used in travel to create my first sound installation for the inaugural Biennial of the Americas: Listening Ports Numbers One and Two: Longyearbyen. I knew when I landed there the first time in July 2010, that I would never be able to stop dreaming about the Norwegian Arctic. The changes these past six years have been profoundly tragic. The people who live and work in this terrain are some of the most committed humanitarians I have ever known.

The Arctic is a microcosm for the entire planet.

What can be created now to represent our world to an audience 1000 years in the future? What of ourselves do we want to preserve, and what deserves to be cast off? I’ve considered these questions often during my time in the Far North, and I’ve assembled a committed team of artists and scientists who are propelled by similar thoughts.

Through the process of dead reckoning—navigating only with regard to prior position—we explore the new frontier of climate adaptability in a feature-length documentary of the same name.

In DEAD RECKONING we follow the voyage of four artists around the Svalbard Archipelago, 1000 kilometers from the North Pole. Each of these individuals possesses an intimate knowledge of the Arctic landscape and the industries that govern it; through their stories we understand how climate change is impacting not only our economic systems, but also our communal values. During their sail, the artists will create work to be stored in the Global Seed Vault—a safeguard against the loss of the world’s cultural expressions and the symbolic destination for these artists pondering our very real climate crisis.

Through intimate and varied storytelling devices, this film seeks to blur the lines between reality and fiction to motivate viewers to take agency in the face of climate change. DEAD RECKONING is the seed element of a joint-film project that furthers this call to action; by uniting true stories with sci-fi narrative and mobile game application, we hope to facilitate a cultural shift in how we talk about—and adapt to—the changing landscape. This film is the crux of a complex and long-term commitment to revolutionizing climate change discourse.

Your contribution will help us film our time-sensitive documentary in the autumn of this year. If we do not film this October, we will have to wait one full year for the waters to be open and the light to be best. Since 2010, I have carefully been putting together an American/Norwegian team of talented artists, climate scientists, and visionaries to ensure this story is told powerfully. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Lucian Muntean serves as our Director of Photography. His vision as a cinematographer and social justice advocate aligns superbly with the internationality and magnitude of DEAD RECKONING.

It is our deepest desire that through the medium of film, an embodied myth is built, not unlike the mechanism of the Greek theater which called citizens to act and make choices both individually, and as a collective whole.

Film is our most powerful contemporary mechanism.

http://deadreckoningthemovie.com