Creative Energy!

Art has always been a great vehicle for getting people to think about important issues. So imagine your community creating public art that also generates electricity. That's the idea behind the Land Art Generator Initiative.

LAGI is an international group of artists, architects, scientists, and engineers who are partnering to create environmental art installations that produce clean electricity for the grid, as well as aesthetic beauty. The project is working in the United Arab Emirates, as part of that country's interest in moving away from a petroleum-based economy.



LAGI is talking about enough power from each installation to supply 50,000 homes. Certainly modern wind turbines have a certain sculptural beauty, and solar farms can be seen as cubist, but LAGI's ambitions run to earthwork installations, something of monumental proportions. Storm King and the works of Robert Smithson and Walter de Maria are the scale of projects they are shooting for.



Storm King Wavefield by Maya Lin


Smithson's Spiral Jetty


de Maria's Lightning Field

I can't wait to see the projects they choose. The competition will open this fall, with selections by the end of 2010.

Video: Art in Dubai: Land Art Generator Initiative (Tavis Smiley Show)