If climate grief doesn't lead us anywhere, what can we do? 
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"Schmilz, schmilz, Baby!" is a thought-provoking campaign on the glacier retreat of Austria’s biggest glacier Pasterze, initiated by the activist artist group Aggro Climate. It includes citizen perspectives in an ideas competition on what to do with the free space once the ice melted.
 
Aggro Climate is using scientific research as foundation of their radical approach by explaining that at the end of the 21st century, Alpine glaciers are expected to lose 91% of their surface area and 94% of their volume. According to the Austrian Alpine Association, the glaciers in Austria will melt within the next 40 years. 
 
We as artists from Aggro Climate took this opportunity to raise awareness and transform the problem into future possibilities. We documented the retreat of Pasterze during a field trip, where the melting of the ice was audio-visually captured in a campaign video. This video served as the foundation for the ideas competition, since we brainstormed potential events and activities that could take place at a post-glacial Pasterze in the future. Citizens were invited to submit their ideas and generate images for the life after the glacier retreat on an AI-powered website. Aggro Climate launched this speculative AI storytelling tool and kicked off the competition at a campaign release event in partnership with Innovation Hauptplatz in Linz. The campaign was funded by the Ars Electronica Futurelab as winning project of an internal company competition and to even attract more participants, the work has been exhibited as an installation at the Open Futurelab at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024.