The Work

Giuseppe Romeo
Never the less, 2006
Reproduced courtesy of the artist
Photographer: Elio Rulli

Giuseppe Romeo

The statements I use in my mirror works form a commentary on the human condition and our political world. Each word or phrase is scrawled in carbon on mirror, placing the viewer squarely in the looking glass. The viewer becomes the viewed in this soot landscape. Each statement in the grid links to another and yet stands alone: a soundbite; a sightbite of our existence. But whereas the media and advertising slogans are cleansed of individual humanity my own images seek to put individuals back into the messy, complex picture. Brick by brick, there is no escape. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, messages cut into the grime of our remnants eat away at our carbon backbone. What's left of smoke is not fire but charred remains.

Giuseppe Romeo

Paper

The environmental impact

Soot- lamp black - carbon black - is a powdery deposit of unburned fuel residues. It is among the darkest and least reflective substances known.

In most developed countries, diesel fuels are the main source of soot or carbon black. The number of vehicles registered as using diesel fuel in Australia 2007 is 1.7 million vehicles. (Australian Bureau of Statistics - Motor Vehicle Census - Australia, 31 March 2007).

Scientists have begun to recognize soot as having the potential to cause changes in climate. Soot absorbs sunlight and, therefore, heats the surrounding air, also reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, resulting in a cooler surface. The heated air can create an unstable atmosphere resulting in rising air, forming clouds and bringing rainfall to areas heavily concentrated with soot. The rising air is often balanced by an increase in sinking air in neighbouring regions, which tend to prevent cloud formation and rainfall. An example of this rising and sinking air can be found in southern and northern China. Southern China has experienced rising air forcing increased rainfall due to soot and other pollutants, while in northern China sinking air has increased the occurrence of dust storms and has resulted in droughts.

Soot has also been found to cause climate changes in areas of higher latitude where ice and snow are more common. Typically, ice and snow reflect sunlight rather than absorb it due to having a white background, also known as an albedo effect. When snow and ice are covered in soot, the soot absorbs the sunlight warming the ice and snow causing a faster than normal melt. As more melting occurs, the warming effect increases as the soot becomes more concentrated on the snow surface and the land surface is exposed. A study by the Goddard Institute and Columbia University's Earth Institute found that the effect that soot has on snow albedo may be contributing to the trend of early spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Earlier springs may be further cause of the thinning of Arctic sea ice, and the melting of glaciers and permafrost.

Environmental Literacy Council- www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1336.html