Joules of the Arctic

The Arctic is undergoing rapid and detrimental change. Increased accessibility as a result of diminishing sea ice combined with the dynamics of the global oil industry have transformed the region from a frontier of primarily scientific inquiry into a site of contested international politics.

In opposition to common conceptions, the transformations that are taking place are not a mere consequence of climate change, but a direct result of almost half a century of slow regulatory restructuring and implementation of legal architecture inflicted by the fluctuating price of oil. The natural resources of the region have been the critical component in the energy strategies of the Arctic countries since the early 1970s. Multiple shifts within the global oil market have elevated the Arctic as a critical hydrocarbon province, only to marginalize it later when the oil shocks declined.

In 2008, US Geological Survey issued a highly publicized—and highly misreported—hydrocarbon assessment of the Arctic indicating that as much as thirteen percent of the world’s undiscovered oil resources and thirty percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas resources lie in the region. Anxious to secure access to undiscovered hydrocarbon resources, Arctic countries are maintaining a strategic presence in the High North. While it is fair to say that the region is free of military conflict, the stakeholders are showing increasingly aggressive territorial attitudes.

Joules of the Arctic explores the changing conditions of the Arctic and uses animation techniques as a device to chronologically build up layers of geospatial data. It also explores the relationship between two kinds of processes—crude oil price oscillations and a gradual accumulation of infrastructure in the Arctic, accommodated through the intensification of land use and connectivity over the warmer months of the year.

Text: Grga Basic