Will X know about snow? How might X adapt to climate change and other critical ecological trends? Can fiction creation help us re-invent our own biospheric story, and X’s story in 2070? Drawing from contributions from a network of artists, scientists, and youth, the hello X laboratory produces a podcast, short videos, events, workshops, and will soon launch its first augmented reality story experience.

Ice-9 was founded in 2014 by artists Christine Cynn & Valentin Manz. Christine is a film director/producer and conceptual artist who has been playing with documentary/fiction hybrids since 1996 (including co-direction of The Act of Killing). Valentin Manz has been creating interactive environments, sculptures, and visual art since 1990. He specializes in process-based art, created within communities in dialogue with local stories and landscapes. Ice-9 is based in Tromsø, Northern Norway.

Ice-9's mission is to build experimental spaces for productive play with stories. These spaces are online, on the street, in classrooms and museums. Our strategy is improvisational, collaborative, and networked. Our process creates positive feedback loops between science, art, and education, supporting a transition towards a knowledge-based circular economy in an inclusive, just, and democratic global society.

Productive storyplay means serious fun — serious because we tackle scary real-world scenarios, and fun because we learn to collectively channel fears, doubts, even rage, into stories that ultimately nurture love for X and her unborn generation.

For a full list of participating hello X artists and scientists go to https://hellox.me/about/

X50 is supported by KORO and produced in partnership with Tromsø kommune.

hello X partners:

• Tromsø Kommune
• Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum
• Fram - the High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment with it’s flagships:
  • Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, technology and agreements
  • Effects of climate change on sea and coastal ecology
  • Effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems, landscapes, society and indigenous peoples