Organograph

Organograph is a project for a 75-foot tall iconic public artwork by Geo Homsy, Chico MacMurtrie, and Bill Washabaugh initially proposed for Diridon Station area redevelopment in downtown San Jose, California as part of the Climate Clock Initiative.

It illustrates, in a simple manner, the intangible mechanisms that govern the earth’s carbon cycle and displays how humans are changing that cycle, causing the planet to warm. Organograph combines a model of the earth’s carbon cycle, a long time-frame clock, an incubating plant green house, and an organic global temperature and CO2 graph into an artwork with an impactful message.  Visitors to the Organograph are invited to come inside the structure and enter a different world: to observe, investigate and respond to the processes of climate change.

All of the elements of Organograph are designed with an open and discoverable architecture. Much the way that one intuitively understands how the gears and pendulums of a grandfather clock are used to measure out time, the Organograph’s mechanisms slowly rotating above, below, and around visitors bring a physical illustration to the real mechanisms that govern human-driven climate change. Visitors will be able to investigate and understand the microscopic chemical processes of climate change, and how these processes play out at vast planetary scales.

The educational outreach initiatives aimed at both young students and adults surrounding the project will serve to grow roots through the community that will encourage learning, sustained interaction, stewardship, and social awareness. The online portal of the Organograph will provide a resource for deeper learning experiences and interactions bringing together people in the local and the worldwide communities. Organograph tells the past, present, and future of climate change globally and in the city of San Jose, where it will interact with the community and the environment for the next 100 years. Organograph will function as a captivating civic beacon as well as a flexible instrument of scientific measurement, public education, and individual experience.