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HARVEST

2018 By Julian Oliver
An image of a rural landscape. In the background is a double rainbow
across a hazy sky. At the foreground, there are 3 heavy cases, a camera
standing on a tripod and a device measuring the wind.
Julian Oliver, HARVEST, 2018. Commisioned by Blackwood Gallery for "The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea".

Built to harness two elements of our changing climate — wind gusts and storms — HARVEST was designed by artist and engineer Julian Oliver to use renewable energy to mine cryptocurrency. Oliver originally envisaged the device as a prototype that could be scaled to donate the funds it generates to climate-change research; however, as the negative environmental impacts of mining crypto­currency became increasingly clear, Oliver no longer endorsed the concept. As a work of critical engineering, HARVEST is a reminder that whilst each technolo­gical advance initially holds such promise, their impacts change as they are scaled and commercialised.

An image showing the prototype, hardware and cables.
Technical Inventory, from HARVEST, 2018 by Julian Oliver.