Waters off Wharariki Beach

40º07’54”S 172º10’46”E
South Taranaki Bight
Aotearoa New Zealand

Twelve Earths’ fourth announced location is located in the extended region of Aotearoa New Zealand‘s South Taranaki Bight, where a recently identified population of non-migratory blue whales lives. One of the most mysterious cetaceans, the blue whale is the largest animal known to have existed on Earth.

Wharariki is a remote eco sanctuary, located at the northernmost tip of New Zealand's South Island and accessible only by foot. For the Māori, the area is known as o te wairua o nga tangata o te Waipounamu and is recognized as a spiritual portal between worlds.

While on board the research vessel, McKean will help to deploy a specially designed hydrophone at a location directly along Twelve Earths’ ring path. The hydrophone, a complex listening and recording system, will archive an entire year of mostly infrasonic blue whale calls—haunting communiqués that, while the loudest sounds made by an animal on the planet, are also below the threshold of human auditory perception. These calls travel 100s if not 1000s of kilometers underwater.

The hydrophone, designed by Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and customized by McKean, is hermetically sealed within a buoyant 17-inch glass sphere. The device is robust enough to survive demanding conditions in the mesopelagic zone, which extends up to 1,000 meters below the surface, where light and temperature decrease markedly. The hydrophone bears a titanium disc, a Twelve Earths cipher, which includes markings and symbols from each site on the ring path. The custom disc subtly gives this scientific device a double life as a sculpture.

This February, McKean will join Dr. Leigh Torres from Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and a team of researchers from the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory (GEMM Lab) as they continue their research about this unique blue whale population. Torres’ research has been instrumental in redrawing our collective understanding of whale life and shaping approaches to species protection and environmental management in the Bight. Says Torres:

"Studying blue whales in Aotearoa New Zealand for the past 15 years has been a fulfilling journey—from population discovery to population description and now toward a deeper understanding of their health, behavior, and movements. We are thrilled to have Michael on board our research vessel this year, which will help us to see our study system from a new perspective and to share the amazing story of these whales more broadly."

Michael Jones Mckean had a chance to talk about Corning's contribution to the Rubin Observatory's M2 reflecting mirror, in advance of Connected by Glass hosted by Corning Museum of Glass on September 30 at 6:00 pm EST

Michael Jones Mckean has written an Article for The Atlantic on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory achieving first light. The Rubin along with Gemini South and SOAR sit atop Cerro Pachón and within Eyeshot Cerro Tololo, together forming Twelve Earths first announced location.

Michael Jones McKean is showing work at Emergence: Art from Life at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, organized by Fathomers.

The work was developed with assistance from Dr. Stephen Fong, Professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, in cooperation with the Museu de Leiria, Portugal.

Emergence is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, presented by Getty.

Michael Jones McKean has published the essay Earth Studies, as part of his guest-edited issue with Art Papers, Reworlding.

Michael Jones McKean will join Art Papers Executive + Artistic Director Sarah Higgins to discuss McKean’s guest edited theme: Reworlding. Higgins and McKean will also chat about how his practices as an artist, a researcher, and an educator informed the theme, particularly Twelve Earths—his planetary sculpture scaled to Earth itself.

Art Papers launched its Spring 2024 issue Reworlding, guest edited by Michael Jones McKean. Reworlding is a thematic exploration of the planetary with contributions by: Michael Jones McKean, Sophie Strand, Haley Mellin + Timur Si-Qin, Del Harrow, Gean Moreno + Stephanie Wakefield, Stephanie Bailey, and a roundtable with Angela Dufresne + Gordon Hall + Arnold Kemp + Michael Jones McKean + Aki Sasamoto + Nato Thompson + Rodrigo Valenzuela

In addition to the skeletal artifacts discovered at Abrigo do Lagar Velho, some ritual adornments made of shells and animal teeth were also discovered.

Here is a portion of our entry for ‘adornment’ from Twelve Earths’ research portal:

“…an adornment—a material thing—can affect the feeling of the wearer, influencing moods and modifying behaviors. In this way, an adornment may take on extradiegetic, talismanic properties wherein a wearer allows themselves to be actively contoured by qualities they believe to be embedded and alive within the adornment. In this way, a simple piece of jewelry, a shell, or new braid can unlock secret psychological dimensions within the wearer, activating dormant chapters of their being.”

Produced by A Lot of Moving Parts and Alex Goss

Congratulations to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory for passing an enormous milestone this past week—the coating of its 52,000 pound, cast glass main reflecting mirror: the M1M3. The mirror you see, spanning over 27 feet across, holds a delicate meniscus of silver. All told, the coating weighs just 64 grams—a few coins worth of metal jingling in your pocket harnessed to make contact with the outer limits of primordial light…

Michael Jones McKean will be speaking at Atlas Obscura's Ecliptic Festival in Arkansas' Valley of the Vapors, which is not coincidentally within the 'path of totality" to witness a rare total eclipse. The celebration spans over 4 days and promises to be memorable. For more information and tickets, visit Atlas Obscura's event page.

In the process of making our new website, A Lot of Moving Parts studio created a series of visualizations using Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s engineering schematics. Sequenced above is a look inside Rubin’s Telescope Assembly Mount: a structure anchored directly to the Andes mountains’ bedrock holding the mirrors and camera.

Michael Jones McKean will be speaking with Nato Thompson of The Alternative School on Instagram Live. The conversation kicks off a 12:00PM ET on The Alternative School's IG handle: @thealternativeschool

At Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Twelve Earths’ most recent location, we’re opening a channel to commune more intimately with the diverse stories the site holds. The bones and artifacts found at the site act as scientific tools, but also as psychic vehicles wherein time travel is possible; where bones become a body, one vulnerable, curious, loving, and loved. These more subjective details can be lost within the scientific record, but within the machinations of an artwork, there is an invitation to explore.

As a gesture toward this desire, we commissioned a series of drawings by illustrator Maxfield Schnaufer to help imagine possible moments, realities, and open questions as a poetic, if speculative exercise—an attempt to touch what perhaps will forever be beyond our grasp.

Portuguese newspaper Publico published an article highlighting Twelve Earths' announcement of Abrigo do Lagar Velho and the work that will come to unfold in the Lapedo Valley.

Abrigo do Lagar Velho
o / o o / o o o o o o o

39°45′19.41″N 8°44′6.92″W
Leiria District
Lapedo Valley, Portugal

Twelve Earths’ second announced location is an active archaeological site and Paleolithic rock shelter visited by humans for over a thousand generations.

The discovery of a ceremoniously child buried there 29,000 years ago helped to unlock secrets of who we are—the question of ‘humanity’ at its most profound.

In asking questions of nearly imperceptible contours of bone; tracing forensic clues locked in ancient pollen; probing meanings locked within the delicate carvings of animal teeth; in wondering about our past selves, we unwittingly uncover who we are.

The site preserves this idea, encapsulating it as a message: a reminder stored in bones and pendants and pigment of a deep connection to each other across time, customs, language, and space.

Portuguese publication Jornal de Leiria has spotlighted Twelve Earths and its involvement with the Abrigo do Lagar Velho site. Read more here.

Michael Jones McKean Studio, in deep cooperation with Fathomers in Los Angeles, excited to announce Abrigo do Lagar Velho as the second site in artist Michael Jones McKean’s long-form planetary sculpture Twelve Earths. This rock shelter, visited and occupied by humans for tens of thousands of years in the Lapedo Valley of Portugal’s District of Leiria, contains one of the most significant archaeological findings of the past century: the 29,000-year-old remains of a ceremoniously buried four-year-old child whose discovery helped change our perceptions of what it means to be human.

For full press release information: Português | English

For additional information, please contact:
[email protected]

Our perception of speed—fast, average, and slow—is innately relative and linked to one's body. But it is also linked to established codes and rhythms. For us, there exists an orthodoxy of cadence. Early on in Twelve Earths’ origin, there was the desire to create non-normative expectations around time, with an attention to how an artwork might develop a new approach to speed—moving slower.

The repercussions of this choice are manifold. At times Twelve Earths seems to disappear, especially on channels such as this one. But there is also the get-it-right conundrum of making things: wanting to put things into the world that feel considered. With this in mind, we have been working feverishly (fast, even!) on the announcement of our second site and the launch of our updated website. This process of attention and iteration has delayed our original launch date, with a new announcement date of November 14th now inching closer.