Certain Uncertainty by Kay Schröder

Water stress or scarcity does always need to be reflected in context. While some parts of the world are only sparsely populated, the impact and mitigation of water stress in densely populated areas is potentially critical. While most water stress mappings focus on communicating the water stress within a tempo-spatial context, this project aims to map the water stress of selected capitals within the context of the global population density to enable the viewer to explore the interaction between both dimensions in a meaningful way. The water stress of each of the selected capitals is encoded in red semitransparent epoxy discs representing four dimensions: the latitude and longitude that puts the disc in the accurate spatial context, a radius reflecting the humans living in the area, and a height representing the projected water stress.
The projection space – an elevation map showing the population density of the world – is made of wood and shaped with a CNC cutter based on demographic data. The surface is coated with multi-layer high pigmented color to allow accurate color reflections of the water stress epoxy discs.
Through focusing strongly on the data itself and removing all cartographic borderlines, an abstract space of mountain ranges remains, showing the world as a spatial accumulation of humans confronted with increasingly changing environmental conditions.