OK. Hey, I'm BT Wolf. And um it's wonderful to be here talking with you. These things are kind of strange because you feel like you're talking to yourself or you're in some anechoic chamber, um which I've actually spent a lot of time in an anechoic chambers.That is so, yeah, so I'm a, you can probably see from behind me. I'm an artist, a musician, but I've never, I guess really seen it in terms of just being in one box or just being one thing. And over the years, you know, my work has gone into all these different fields from science, technology, design, health, space. And I've started out really essentially trying to recreate what we lost when we moved from physical to digital, specifically for music, you know, so trying to bring back this ceremonial story led um tangible music experience in the digital age. But then it, the work just kind of kept spreading in a way. And, you know, I've always had this philanthropic music dementia research project. So that was always something slightly different because I'd be working with neuroscientists and, and brain specialists on that. Um And then, you know, I was also doing work with say Bell Labs, engineers and the astronomer Robert Wilson to do this space broadcast. Um So the work kept kind of expanding into these different areas and where I was working with very different people.

Um until, you know, then also very much got into the environmental climate space. And I'll tell you more about that in a second. But for me, I think the thing that was always really clear and important in a way was this idea of exploring whatever you were curious about and seeing the different fields and disciplines as really just different lenses through which to explore our place in the world and our place in the universe.

And from my perspective, I thought, well, why wouldn't you have as many lenses as possible? You know, why wouldn't you have all these different prisms to look through? And so, you know, from a young age, you know, I started writing songs very young and um discovered my parents record collection and saw those as these musical books, you know, you could open up and there were these portals into these other worlds. And so from that time, I was imagining, well, what, what will my record feel like? What will it look like as much as what it will sound like? And so that very much became later on the desire when I grew up and it was time for the first record to come out. And we had this digital era that had replaced everything I loved about the physical listening experience. That was the intention behind creating these totally new formats for music in the digital age, you know, which I then did an exhibition of the Victorian Albert Museum. Um And ironically had Apple and Spotify and, you know, Google and all these people sort of um having me speak to their VPs and various, you know, parts of the business in terms of inspiring different thinking.

So the, the music track had always been there, but also from a young age, you know, I, I was immersed in my father's rare books. He was, you know, dealing in science and natural history and he'd have these rare manuscripts and incredible original works in the flat because he couldn't afford a shop and I pick them up and handle them as a kid and be really worried. Oh, you know, this, I'm gonna, I need to put gloves on or whatever and he was like, no, these things were made to last, you know, and that really stayed with me that you can have something that is this scientific work. It is a moment of discovery in a way of patenting that pa patenting that. But it's also this art form and it's something that is another portal that, you know, brings you back to this moment in time. And, you know, my mother was a writer and a therapist and so there was so much um stimuli, I guess that I was growing up with and the idea of then getting to a point in one's life where you just became, one thing seemed really crazy to me. And so it was, it was always about working really following that thread and, and working for working wherever that thread took you and with whomever was in that area of interest.

Um, so the, I guess that was a bit of background in a way and, um you know, just a sort of flavor of how I grew up and how I see the world. And, you know, the, the main topic of this conversation is this environmental project in activating environmental awareness, um which was something that was always very present in my mind. Certainly, as a teenager, when I saw an inconvenient truth and left the cinema just completely like what the f like, how are we, how are we here? And why isn't everyone talking about this? Um And I went home and I wrote this song called from Green to Red, which I thought, well, I don't need to record it because everyone's going to see the documentary and this song will be irrelevant. And obviously that didn't happen. And then a couple of years ago I was presenting my work at nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratories and to all of their engineers. And at the end of the talk, one of the chief engineers comes up and says, you know, I really want to show you these atmospheric co two graphs. I think you'll be interested in seeing them.

And I looking at this, you know, 800,000 years of climate data and just how stark it it is. And it was and thinking like, excuse me thinking like it had been 15 years since seeing an inconvenient truth. And if anything, we, we hadn't just exponentially made things worse, we had accelerated things to a point of insanity. But also realizing that if you're, you know, frustrated and angry with the world that doesn't really help. So the feeling I got was seeing this data was how can we make this relatable? How can we take something that is cold? And for a lot of people, it's just, you know, maybe the shutters are up or they think it's, they, they don't have a particularly scientific mind. So they don't, you know, really, they almost expect not to understand it. How do you take something like that and turn it into something everyone can feel and everyone can relate to? And it's, it's inclusive, you know, it's immediate and it's accessible. And so I had this idea, you know, to take the data to visualize it. So to essentially create a visual timeline of our planet, highlighting, you know, rising CO2 levels and human impact and selling that to this song that I've written as a teenager as this sort of 4.5 minute piece which really shows you the data in this new, different way, using the power of art to sort of humanize it and make it relatable.

And at the time I had this idea, this was, you know, four or five years ago. Uh I thought, well, it's so obvious again, I have this feeling like, well, it's so obvious if I do it, it's probably not gonna really make a difference or people are gonna think. Yeah. You know, we, we know that by now. Um So I really didn't expect it to have any real impact. I just felt that it was really important to do and I felt really passionate about doing it. And so I created the project and, you know, it started to get shared the Barbican was the first place and on, on BBC World Service. And, you know, and that was just when the beta version was kind of ready at that point. And then it just, it kind of snowballed in this incredible way. And, you know, suddenly it was being asked to be at the Nobel Prize summit and I was asked to speak there after sir David Attenborough and Al Gore and present the work and perform. And, you know, I had the space um the Nobel Prize winning astronomer Robert Wilson, who I did this space broadcast with, he introduced me and it was just so incredible and surreal. And I, yeah, I, I couldn't really believe it.

And then it was installed at the London design Binali as this interactive installation where people could actually inter interrogate the data, they could move their hands over the fabric as it was being woven in front of them and pull out the carbon P PM and planetary timeline date.

Um And then it was a cop and it was, you know, projected 500 ft wide onto cops conference center as the largest visual statement of the festival or the conference. And it was at the New York Times climate hub where I was opening their, their climate hub with their editor. And it, it was just incredible to see the response to it and the reception and that's still the case, you know, it's still the UN or National Academy of Sciences. There are all these places that it's going to be shown and, and installed at, and it was kind of wonderful in a way to realize again, you know, and I've had this, I think quite a few times I had it with the dementia project. I had it with one or two of the album innovations where I just felt like I, I didn't really know if I needed to kind of keep exploring this particular aspect because I felt maybe it was obvious or maybe there was enough data or there was enough research or something like that had been done.

And, and then I think realizing that, you know, no, actually that was a unique insight or that was adding something different or something valuable, which I think we all have, I think we all have the capacity to come at things from a unique angle that really, you know, no one else can do.

But, but I think a lot of that is down to trusting ourselves and trusting what we get excited about. And that's not necessarily what we've been trained to do through education and through being part of society, you know. So in that sense, being a kind of, I guess like a, a bit of a rogue, you know, I can go into these different territories and work with these different people and it's all down to what I wanna do. You know, it's not, this isn't based on anyone else at any company telling me what to do. And that was a big choice with how I did certain things artistically. So, um, yeah, I think I'm, I will be showing you in a few. Well, we've still got a few minutes, but I will be showing you actually, we can watch it. Now, let me, I'm gonna do one of these, uh one of these uh recording shares which weirdly I've not done before, not really done a talk like this before where I feel like I'm just having a nice chat with my myself. But um, so hang on just a second and this w what I'm about to show you is the 800,000 years of climate data.

Um translated into this woven visual timeline of our planet depicting rising CO2 levels and human impact set to the song that I wrote as a teenager and this is just a trailer for it. The full length version you can also watch online

outside are still running when inside it to deny that it's coming this thunder. So the winds are just humming to the sand, the heat breath and don't want to hear that. The problem is us. So we live like we want in our own universe, man. Things he's got in a devilish way. We're too proud to see what we them. We don't want to know. Don't wanna, don't wanna, don't wanna know. No, we don't. No, no, no, don't wanna know. So hang my hand baby and I'll walk you to well learn how to live by a new set of rules. But the left for you, forgive us. My dear. Can't you see? It's the truth that we don't want to know. No, don't wanna know. Don't wanna know. No to, no, don't want no. Don't want a oh some so much to say and to, oh All my shadow.

Yeah. So that was the trailer for this project. Um That was kind of in a way the Yeah, the first thing that was created for it. And um as I mentioned, it was then installed in the London Design Binali in a way where as that timeline was being woven by using your hands, you could activate that specific carbon P PM point and planetary timeline date. And that really gave that sense of being able to interrogate the data and, you know, really get a feel of it because I think the thing I feel a lot is in this age, you know, w which is so um we're so bombarded with digital stimuli, you know, when we moved from physical to digital and became such a, a digital, you know, species in a way, I think we lost a lot of things in that process.

A lot of things that are actually core to our humanity and core to kind of keeping us, you know, really thriving as human beings. Um because, you know, technology did this wonderful job of fast tracking what it means to be a human being on the planet. But it, it short changed us in a lot of ways and it devalued a lot of things in that fast tracking process. So suddenly we have all the access in the world to say to music, but to really a lot of information in general, but we don't really have any value and there's all this noise but there's no curation and with something like planet saving messages, you know, they're getting lost in this kind of constant barrage of, of stimuli and this frequency, these frequencies, they're very much hitting us at the same point.

And music is part of that and social media is part of that and news and everything is sort of in this same sphere. And I feel like we need things to pull us out of that and to kind of almost trick the brain so that something can go in deep and in print. Because I think when we lost the physical, the tangible and the sense of ceremony and the, the sense of story which say you look at a record and that was an epitome of it. But you have that with many art forms, I think we also lost the ability for things to go in and imprint and stay with us and be, become a part of our DNA and who we are and move us and shape us. So with a project like from green to red, it's taking something that is almost yeah intangible like data and presenting it in a way that you don't expect. So it's, you know, you're taking data and you're making it something you can feel. And I, I always think that in the same way that work the best work kind of crosses many disciplines, you know, particularly in this age where we've devalued a lot of the disciplines and crafts.

Um I think we need things that are sort of intersecting many disciplines again where the brain doesn't really know well, what is this? Is it art or is it science or is it technology? And I think we also need things that sort of sensory do a sensory um version of this where, you know, you, you make music visual or you make data tangible. Um So this is something I think about, you know, a lot. And um with that project, you know, it went up to 2019. But, you know, the data has now been included for where we are now and it's being updated all the time. And the installation version of what you saw will be going into a number of conferences in the year and more, more basically, it's being shown in more places which is wonderful. Um And then, you know, I, I would probably just say because there is so much to say and um I don't know exactly that, that, you know what, what that real sort of prick of interest is. But I also feel that it's really important to do things on a grassroots level.

I think with the climate emergency, we need the awareness pieces, we need the big activations of awareness, you know, because once you're aware of something, it's very hard to become unaware of it, but it takes a lot to activate our awareness, particularly when we are being bombarded with everything all the time.

And so just on a grassroots level, on the other end of the spectrum, I've been working here to highlight and, and sort of document these local Californian initiatives which are hidden in plain sight. You know, one is rethinking the urban landscape, planting the right trees in the right environments which then at the end of life cycle, instead of becoming tinder where all the carbon is released back into the atmosphere, it becomes a guitar and actually the guitar that I play on.

And you know, another one working with Noah on this rewilding the west coast aquaculture. Abalone kelp again that connects back to the guitar because Abalone Shell was used for guitar Inlay. So it's been this lovely way of using the guitar, a symbol, a musical symbol as a way of actually looking at these eco incredible eco initiatives and working with more scientists to highlight those. Um And I think the time is almost up, but, you know, that's what I'd say, I'd say the thing I love is um you know, being an artist in that whatever sense of that word and actually working with so many incredible people across these different fields with incredible knowledge and expertise who don't always have the best way of communicating that.

And so if you can create work that bridges, you know, these different areas that are usually siloed and you can communicate things for maybe the people that don't know how to make it as relatable like the client scientists. Then I feel that's what art is meant to be doing in this 21st century. It's not meant to be narcissistic and self serving and look how many likes I've got, it's meant to be really saying something that no one else maybe can say in that particular way and, you know, moving people into revolution. So, um thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. Uh Again, it is uh you know, a sign of the times that we do these things and sort of have no sense of who we're talking to. But it's been lovely chatting with you all.