Suchy-LiCata re-enact iconic photos of Antarctica's "Heroic Age"

 Trish Suchy of the LSU Department of Communication Studies and Vince LiCata of the LSU Department of Biological Sciences spent most of January and February working in Antarctica on an interdisciplinary National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Project called "Antarctica: Persistence of Vision".  The pair spent nearly two months working with scientists and staff at McMurdo Station in Antarctica to recreate modern versions of some of the most iconic photography of the Antarctic continent taken 100-plus years ago. 

Antarctic expeditions during the "Heroic Age" almost always included a photographer to document the landscapes, the people and the discoveries made by explorers and scientists such as Robert Falcon Scott, Edward Adrian Wilson, Roald Amundsen, and Ernest Shackleton. Suchy and LiCata worked with modern researchers and staff at McMurdo to re-enact some of these iconic photos – but with a few twists.  The subjects of the Suchy-LiCata photos are in their modern winter gear, working in the state of the art laboratories and research facilities now in McMurdo, and showcase the now internationally diverse group of people that work on this remote continent.  For example, where a photo from the 1910 Terra Nova Expedition might show a dog sled and explorers in heavy wool coats, the Suchy-LiCata photos show scientists with a snowmobile in modern parkas doing research in the same location. 

The second twist is the way the modern scientists and staff are photographed.  Using artistic techniques with which artists like Bill Viola and Robert Wilson have experimented, Suchy and LiCata made high-definition extreme slow motion "video portraits", where the image at first looks like a photograph to the viewer, but upon closer inspection is seen to be slowly moving.  The team also plans to work on variations on the video portrait form, using modern technologies in the place of historical photographer Herbert Ponting’s still cameras and cinematograph.

Suchy and LiCata have worked together on a number of different artistic and performance projects that combine art and science, and their deployment to Antarctica in January culminated nearly three years of proposals, planning, and preparation for this particular project.  The pair will assemble "Antarctica: Persistence of Vision" for exhibition as installation art, and are already in discussion with several interested art galleries.  The National Science Foundation supports the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program as a way to foster communication of the value of ongoing research in Antarctica and further understanding of the continent.  The Division of Polar Programs in the National Science Foundations' Geosciences Directorate manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, through which it supports all U.S. government research in Antarctica and aboard ships in the Southern Ocean.

Read more about Suchy and LiCata's journey on their blogs here:  https://beyondtheutmostbound.wordpress.com/about/ and http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/author/vlicata/