Viking Horn-Inspired Turbines Make Green Music In Copenhagen
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The government of Denmark finds that wind power is by far the cheapest new form of electricity in the country. New onshore wind plants coming online in 2016 will provide energy for about half the price of coal and natural gas plants, according to the Danish Energy Agency (DEA), and will cost around five cents per kilowatt hour.
Denmark pioneered wind power during the 1970s and created a manufacturing base that today leads the technology. Wind power provided one-third of Denmark’s energy consumption in 2013 and 41% of energy consumption in the first half of 2014. The goal is 50% of Denmark’s energy consumption coming from wind power by 2020.
How poetic and relevant it is that designers Laura Mesa Arango and Rafael Sanchez Herrera are inspired by Denmark’s wind power history but also historical Viking horn forms for their new exhibit at the 2014 Land Art Generator Initiative.
Located at Copenhagen’s harbor edge, the project of 12 large-scale Viking horn forms function as ‘compact wind acceleration turbines’ that both generate energy but also produce a public ‘sound landscape’ designed to create a public space in which people can reflect on the impact of environmental forces on past, current, and future realities.
The sounds from the turbines come as air movement interacts with the horn’s shape and an arrangement of holes in the lower portion. The tones produced correspond ‘with letters of the alphabet that refer to natural forces’ including ‘S-U-N’, ‘W-A-T-E-R’, and ‘I-C-E’.
