“Listen closely.” When glacier aesthetics turn into spectacle again.
There is something hypnotic about the projects that invite us to contemplate the climate crisis through the language of art. Melting glaciers, deep sounds, altered landscapes. They do not speak, but they whisper. And in that whisper, polished, magnetic, immersive, we feel summoned to a new form of empathy. But is that truly the case? The new work by BICEP, Takkuuk, moves along that subtle edge between representation and transformation. A project born among the glaciers of Greenland, built together with Sámi and Inuit artists, electronic sound and infrared images. A multisensory experience that invites us to "look closely" at what is melting, both literally and symbolically.
But in an era when even activism becomes format and ecological awareness turns into aesthetic identity, we must ask ourselves: what truly remains, after the experience?
The power of light forms
We have been taught to think of electronic music as escapism, not declaration. Body, not discourse. Yet it is precisely in these other languages, intuitive, atmospheric, nonverbal, that much of today’s most powerful communication takes place. Takkuuk is a clear example of this strategy. Ecology is not explained, it is made perceptible. The sound of cracking ice, voices in minority languages, pulsing basslines like subterranean circulations. The result is a somatic resonance. Something touches you, even if you do not fully understand what. It is undoubtedly a strength. But also a risk. When awareness becomes aesthetic, how much of it remains political?
The loop of climate sublime
The fascination with extreme landscapes, with beauty on the brink of collapse, has become a recognizable language. Glaciers, deserts, burning forests. The aesthetic of climate change is now canonical. It works, it moves, it circulates. But does it produce transformation or only a form of uneasy contemplation? The risk is that of the loop. We continue to produce works that denounce, display, move. But we do so from a position where the artistic gesture also serves to reassure the audience. As if feeling something were enough to claim we have been changed. The effect is paradoxical. We feel involved precisely while remaining on the sidelines. We recognize the crisis, but do not cross it. We consume it.
Visibility and symbolic power
There is also the matter of representation. BICEP collaborated with Indigenous artists, used minority languages, recorded on site. It is not an isolated or superficial gesture. There is an intention to listen, to open up, to decentralize. But it is still the West telling the story. Still the white electronic duo who filters, assembles, delivers. And even when done respectfully, the question remains. Is this amplification an act of alliance, or a new center rebuilding itself on other margins? Can those who listen to Takkuuk truly enter another perspective, or do they remain in an aesthetic stance that watches without shifting? And this is not an isolated issue. Many narratives that define themselves as Indigenous, or are presented as voices “from within” glacial cultures, risk falling into the same paradox. They recount climate trauma with poetic grace, but from still-central positions. They speak of glaciers as a familiar landscape, but in a tone that is sometimes more affective than political. Family, childhood, memory. All tightened into an intimate frame that moves us, but does not unsettle. As if catastrophe could be contained in the story of a father, a mother, a time gone by. The point is that often, even when the narratives come from culturally authentic or legitimized contexts, those speaking are people with strong intellectual, symbolic, or media capital. Established writers, academics, recognized artists. Figures who, even while presenting personal or collective stories, remain in a position of privilege. But if the climate crisis affects everyone, how can we imagine a narrative that is truly common? Where are the voices of those without titles, without visibility, without the aesthetic and symbolic apparatus of storytelling? Perhaps this is where we need to begin again. Not from the representation of difference, but from a radical opening of the narrative field. A field where testimony is not only performance, but everyday gesture. Where knowledge is not only culture, but experience.
And then?
When the sound ends and the installation closes, what remains? Who do these projects really speak to? Those who can afford to attend, to follow, to be moved by them. Those who already have the tools to decode them. Far from the places where the crisis is lived daily, these gestures risk producing a form of awareness without friction. A consciousness without consequence. A well-packaged catharsis. This is not about rejecting them. But about asking for more. Imagining an art that not only represents, but generates. That not only moves, but connects. That not only stages the fragility of the world, but inhabits its cracks, its languages, its wounds, its conflicts.
Perhaps that is where we should start listening. Not just closely, but from within.
