what we do
The "Paradox Resolved" team seeks new approaches to the interconnected challenges of energy production and water purification--key aspects of the “energy-water nexus.” Currently, we are focused on novel systems for water desalination and clean energy in the Paradox Valley in southwestern Colorado.
who we are
Our interdisciplinary team is comprised of sustainability engineers, architectural designers, data visualization specialists, media experts, and artists.
background
A growing number of regions across the globe face serious challenges with respect to diminished water supply. The American west in particular has spent the last two decades in what scientists are now saying is the most extreme megadrought in at least 1,200 years (Canon, Feb. 15, 2022). New technologies need to be developed that have the potential to address the dual problems of water supply and energy production. Multiple technologies are currently under review by the project team. One site in southwestern Colorado—the Paradox Valley—provides a case study in desalination along the Dolores River (a tributary of the Colorado River) and provides an ideal location for testing current and novel technologies ranging from injection pumping, to evaporation ponds, to new membrane systems for desalination and osmotic power generation.
goal
To significantly reduce salinity levels in the Colorado River while generating clean power for the region.
art context
The project highlights the inextricable connections between natural materials, energy, information, and cultural frames--that is, to quote the systems biologist, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a "complex of components in interaction." In working with such ill-defined domains, the artist is "a perspectivist considering goals, boundaries, structure, input, output, and related activity inside and outside the system. Where the object almost always has a fixed shape and boundaries, the consistency of a system may be altered in time and space, its behavior determined both by external conditions and its mechanisms of control."*
white paper
*These quotes are from Jack Burnham's seminal article from ArtForum entitled, "Systems Esthetic" (September 1968).