signal often needed adjusting for clarity, and the transmitter had limited coverage. But being able to reach a 30–40-km radius meant they could issue a couple of small radios to the dozer and caterpillar drivers, so they could enjoy the broadcasts as they worked. The first prototype station began FM broadcasts on 29 December 2006. Next step The expedition’s task had been to locate a site, set up and test the initial equipment – the AWS, transmission equipment, wind turbine, and solar panels. Zama Magogotya, from the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, is ensuring the smooth running of the project. From the data transmitted daily, Ntshingila, project members, and interested parties can understand better what needs to be included for the mobile LADOMIR base station. LADOMIR will collaborate with other Antarctic base stations, and share skills and information about the environment. In future, the radio station could eventually transmit to geographically dispersed Antarctic bases. Meanwhile, Ntshingila has filmed a video for his song, ‘Liyakhafula’, whose theme is the power of the Sun as the ‘lion’ of the Antarctic. – Nomtha Myoli ■
The Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation (I-TASC) I-TASC is an international network of cultural, scientific, and media technology organizations that share an interest in the convergence of art and science across disciplines. An official project of the International Polar Year (IPY), I-TASC has proposed to establish in the Arctic and Antarctica the framework for collaborative projects between artists, scientists, media workers, and engineers, within the broad fields of migration, weather, and communications. The plan involves installing and maintaining two mobile research stations in the Arctic and Antarctica between 2007 and 2009, and constructing and launching a nano-satellite in a high Sun-synchronous elliptical polar orbit, to enable research and contact between the two stations, and the sharing of sensor data with other IPY projects. The facility planned for the Arctic Circle is MAKROLAB VII. It is an autonomous communications, research, and living unit, that can sustain up to eight crew members for long periods of work (60–180 days) in isolated and insulated conditions. The station is designed for minimal environmental impact, with renewableenergy systems, bioreactor/biological sewage processing, and provision for water recycling. Satellite and HF communication systems, as well as radar infrastructure, will give crews the tools and resources to work in the extreme and harsh polar field-research conditions. Operational systems researched and developed during the MAKROLAB Arctic phases will then be applied to design and build a new rapid-deployment zero-environmental-impact polar research station, to be tested in Antarctica in the southern summers of 2008 and 2009. Its working name is LADOMIR, after the utopian poem written in 1920 by the Russian futurist, Velimir Khlebnikov, who described the universal landscape of the future through the destruction of the old world and its synthesis in the new. The word combines LAD, meaning both ‘harmony’ and ‘living creature’, and MIR, meaning ‘peace’ as well as ‘world, universe.’ Telecommunications, weather and climate systems, and migration are seen as three global areas that can be explored to understand better how our planet functions on natural, social, and technological levels, and to inspire new thinking and new strategies for the future. The LADOMIR-MAKROLAB interpolar complex is intended to bring together the creativity of scientists and people in the arts, and to make our planet understandable to all. Source: I-TASC proposal Right: The GROUNDHOG crew posing in front of the unit.
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