This past week, San Jose hosted the second biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge in it’s downtown environs. Compared to my experience two years ago, when then called Zero One shared the limelight with ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art), this years festival was much more approachable and ultimately more enjoyable for the attendee with artwork that was easier to find and interact with.

On Friday night, the whole of downtown was abuzz with the energy of the arts. The SOFA Block Party generated exciting energy with people milling about, artists sharing their creativity, and music coming from all directions. The upbeat energy made for an enjoyable walk around town, from the SOFA district, to the Museum of Art (which I hope will consider staying open on First Fridays more often) to the various public art (best seen at night) placed around the central core of the city.

Global warming and climate change were the hot topics that emerged repeatedly in several artists work. On Saturday, DJ Spooky aka Paul D. Miller presented his multimedia performance work Terra Nova: The Antarctic Suite at The Tech Center for Innovation. In it, Miller transforms his first person encounter with this harsh and forbidding landscape into music composed from the different geographies and ice fields he visited. His field recordings captured the acoustic qualities of Antarctic ice forms. In doing so, he asks us to reflect on the changing and disappearing environment that is sure to suffer a bleak fate.

At the Museum of Art, Jane Marsching presented several pieces on the topic, but it was her Rising North animation projected on two large walls that presented an almost eery calm juxtaposed against a frightening reality. In it, Marsching took monthly temperature readings from the North Pole data buoys and used the data to visualize the rise in temperature through the use of changing color fields, from pale blue (cold) to warm yellow (warm). On the opposite wall the video is more direct, showing large cities across the globe shrinking as the rising sea levels engulf them. The accompanying audio track plays opera with it’s lyrics revealing the news about the North Pole on March 21, 2007.

In Ice Age, a sculpture and performance piece located on the Plaza de Cesar Chavez on Saturday, Sarah Lowe presents a more playful reminder that we can’t escape climate change. She presents us with a massive 25 foot inflatable iceberg made from plastic sheeting. Beside this installation sits Ice Queen: Glacial Retreat Dress Tent by Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao which is a polor weather station and research lab. Festival goers are invited to crawl under her skirt and listen to the crickets chirping.

While all this visual conversation about climate change can get pretty heady at time, it was refreshing to see Jennifer Delos Reyes and Lori Gordon present the Infinite Exchange Gallery. In an effort to allow everyone to have access to art ownership in their daily lives, the two curators brought together 16 artists that presented work and exchanged services with attendees through non-monetary trades. I was only able to interact with two of them as time was getting short, however, I just love the work that is coming from the Delos Reyes/Gordon partnership as it serves to democratize art and puts it directly into the hands of the people.

Finally!! San Jose has an event that reflects and honors the roots of Silicon Valley and the digital culture that so many of us work hard to create in our daily lives, whether we be artists, programmers, visionaries, engineers, project managers, or just people living in this rich technological jungle we call home. I look forward to the next festival in 2010.