1000 Melting Men in Berlin.

October 2, 2009 9:36 AM

1000 Melting Men in Berlin.(1 2 3 4)

from design boom:

"earlier this week, brazilian artist nele azevedo, carved 1,000 figures out of ice and placed them on the steps of the concert hall in berlin's gendarmenmarkt square. with temperatures of 73 degrees fahreneheit, (23 degress celsius), the ice figures began melting within half an hour. the project entitled 'melting men' was meant to bring awareness to the world wildlife fund's warning, that melting ice could cause sea-levels to rise more than 3.3 ft by 2100."

greenmuze interview last year with Nele Azevedo:

"Melting Men is a series of art installations from the Minimum Monument project created by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo. Since 2005, Azevedo has been setting up her Melting Men in various countries around the world. Although originally intended as a critic of the role of monuments in cities, environmentalists around the world are adopting her work as climate change art."

more images on Nele Azevedo's fotopage.

posted by cristinacristinacristina (20 comments total)

Cool!
posted by dersins at 9:40 AM on October 2

wow
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:42 AM on October 2

Very cool - but I was hoping for some time-lapse video too.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 9:45 AM on October 2

All well and good, but I refuse to face my own mortality in the light of this!
posted by Burhanistan at 9:51 AM on October 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, it was cool for a while.
posted by heyho at 9:56 AM on October 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

Azevedo has been setting up her Melting Men in various countries around the world.

I'm totally gonna hire her for my next party in Dubai!

Seriously, I was hoping to find some description of her process for making the figures. You think each one is actually carved, or are they from molds? Neat stuff.
posted by orme at 10:07 AM on October 2

This amazing installation of 1,000 melting men was done in collaboration with the WWF to highlight global warming.

Is there anything the World Wrestling Federation CAN'T do?
posted by Balisong at 10:12 AM on October 2 [2 favorites has favorites]

No, no, no. You've got it all wrong. You mean the Wildlife Wrestling Federation...

(Back on topic, this would be a really nifty idea for an annual event, and so much more serene than the yearly techno-hippie apocalypse of Burning Man.)
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:25 AM on October 2 [2 favorites has favorites]

Those serene pansy asses wouldn't last five minutes at my annual techno hippie apocalypse.

oh, wait..
posted by mannequito at 11:24 AM on October 2

This is indeed very, errr, cool. The simplicity of the figures and their gradual softening makes the forms created very interesting, especially since they all start out more or less the same, but melt into individuals.

orme: based on the sprue on this one I'm guessing they were made in molds of some sort.

Also, am I the only one wondering how much energy it takes to freeze all of them? /buzzkill
posted by 1f2frfbf at 11:41 AM on October 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

I looked at the pictures, I came in to see if anyone was wondering about the energy consumption required to make ephemeral art that comments on our energy consumption. I am now satisfied, so I will return to productive work.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 12:13 PM on October 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

MetaFilter: Is there anything the Wildlife Wrestling Federation CAN'T do?
posted by jeffburdges at 12:48 PM on October 2

Wildlife Wrestling Federation has some adorable google search results.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:54 PM on October 2 [5 favorites has favorites]

For one brief, shining, glorious moment I thought they were life sized.

After that, the reality's a tad disappointing.

(Though I wouldn't say no to the mould that made them.)
posted by IndigoJones at 2:31 PM on October 2

(Also - they should be carrying mai tais and margaritas. Or tiny beer cans. Really missed opportunity here.)
posted by IndigoJones at 2:34 PM on October 2

wow. totally great. thanks.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:43 PM on October 2

Yeah, this shot is kind of underwhelming. Life-sized ice statues would have been wonderful and lasted for a day or two. That said, some of the shots are beautiful and will now adorn my desktop wallpaper. Thanks for posting!
posted by benzenedream at 3:05 PM on October 2

Intriguing project, but yes, the pictures are more striking when you don't see the people in them for scale. The pic benzenedream links to makes them look like 1000 melting Barbies.
posted by Sublimity at 6:00 PM on October 2

Greenpeace did something similar in Beijing in August - 100 ice children set out to melt in the sun to symbolize melting ice caps. There's a video here.
posted by zhwj at 7:17 PM on October 2

Flickr shots of the 100 ice children. I like the poses of the melting men better - the passivity of the anonymous sitting figures is a nice visual symbol of sloth in response to crisis. The rigidly standing ice children in the context of a Chinese pagoda remind me of a terracotta army.
posted by benzenedream at 1:07 AM on October 3