The animation Generation Loss: the witnessing of demise, 2023 is an amalgamation of photographs, video, and imaginative renderings of CO2, specifically looking at the effects of climate change due to human-induced carbon dioxide and CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The flooding of the Guadalupe River in San Jose, CA, caused by ARs that displaced the unhoused community members who resided along the path of the river in March 2023, was captured on video and blended in with a mosaic iteration to set the backdrop for the conceptualized movement/presence of CO2 in the atmosphere.   The composition consists of imaginative renderings of the CO2 elements. Carbon, a human eye (awareness) and oxygen, red circles (red blood cells-transporters of oxygen). They are adjoined in movement to mimic the chemical compound formation, and contextualized conceptually as human induced performers.

Generation Loss, the Witnessing of Demise

On exhibit at Works/San Jose: community art and performance center

38 S. 2nd St.

San Jose, CA 95113

Runs through August 5th with a summer break in between.

June 10th-June 25th and returns July 21st-August 5th.

Hours:

Fridays 12pm-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm-4pm

Generation Loss, the Witnessing of Demise is a time-based art project focused on climate change/environment and looks at water specifically and details around atmospheric rivers (ARs).  This project acknowledges the excessive increase of carbon dioxide (CO2 chemical compounds) that contribute to the increasingly hotter and more extreme weather patterns due to excessive carbon dioxide output caused by humans; post the industrial era to now.  And, because the temperature of our oceans increases when induced by CO2s they, in turn, will contribute to extreme ARs or more frequent because this warm Pacific climate is the starting point for atmospheric rivers.[1] 

Atmospheric Rivers are horizontal channels of evaporated water that move upward towards mountain regions, and in this form, contain freshwater approximately twice the flow of the Amazon River (≈219,000 m3/sec).[2]  They begin in the warm waters of the Pacific.  When these humid air systems meet Pacific storms, water vapors concentrate upon reaching the coastal mountain range and the eastern Sierras, and heavy precipitation occurs over these regions, impacting our reservoir/water management systems.[3]

There is a duality to ARs impacts- beneficial and hazardous.  They can replenish dry reservoirs and cause flooding, as was the case with the flooding of the Guadalupe River, visible in the animation that occurred in early January of 2023.

The flooding in the Guadalupe River reached 15 feet at the Alma Ave bridge, adversely affecting the unhoused community who reside alongside the river.[4] 

The levels of benefit to hazardous for ARs have been given a color code chart ranging from beneficial to hazardous:

1-Blue, Primarily beneficial

2-Green, Mostly beneficial, also hazardous                                           

3-Yellow, Balance of beneficial and hazardous

4-Orange, Mostly hazardous, also beneficial

5-Red, Primarily hazardous

The water activity at the Guadalupe River was a major-local level event.   And, as a community member of the greater downtown area, Valentino’s objective in making this art is to become more informed himself, as well as remind others and perhaps introduce to the audience this weather phenomenon because it is relevant and all of us will intersect with the effects of atmospheric rivers; carbon dioxide induction; more importantly– the human factor and the loss of our environment’s life qualities. From generation to generation, a loss of quality is in store for our environment as its resources become depleted to its demise.

[1] https://research.noaa.gov/2023/01/11/atmospheric-rivers-what-are-they-and-how-does-noaa-study-them/

[2] https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/ecosystems_amazon/rivers/#2

[3] https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/

[4] https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/09/live-look-bay-area-atmospheric-river-forces-evacuation-orders/