The Goldbergkees is situated in the Hoher Sonnblick area of the Hohe Tauern and is one of the glaciers where the retreat of the ice is particularly evident. As part of the artistic research project “Beyond Glaciation”, a team from the University of Art and Design Linz created a digital 3D model of the glacier. The result documents an alpine glacial landscape that is undergoing rapid transformation as a result of climate change.

Global warming is profoundly changing the Alps. Austria’s glaciers have been losing length, area and volume for decades. The Goldbergkees is a prime example of a landscape whose disappearance must now be considered a matter of years rather than centuries. In Austria, glaciers are never merely natural phenomena. They shape landscapes, tourism, science, art and, with them, the country’s cultural identity. This multifaceted significance is evident at the Goldbergkees. Even its name refers to the region’s mining history: gold was sought for centuries in Kolm-Saigurn and the area around the Sonnblick. Ice, rock and peaks were thus not merely an alpine backdrop, but part of a history of labour, migration and the economy.

At the same time, this landscape is steeped in tales and myths, such as those of the Venediger-Männchen, who roam the mountains and glaciers, know of hidden treasures, and promise good fortune and wealth. The historical painting “Kolm Saigurn in the Rauris Valley with the Sonnblick” by Friedrich Loos depicts this alpine world as a high-mountain landscape imbued with romanticism. Today, the same area appears under different circumstances: the Goldbergkees is becoming an endangered cultural heritage site, the disappearance of which marks not only an ecological but also a cultural loss.

The digital 3D model of the Goldbergkees is based on over 20,000 photographs taken on site using a drone in late summer 2025. In a process known as photogrammetry, these images were first aligned in a three-dimensional virtual space. From this, a point cloud and a digital surface model were generated, and finally a texture that gives the model a realistic appearance. In this way, the result was not an abstract diagram, but a spatially immersive representation of a specific location at a specific point in time.

The digital reconstruction of the Goldbergkees is not only a technical but also a physical process. The data was collected under high-alpine conditions at an altitude of around 3,000 metres: in the cold, in glaring light and in changeable weather. Added to this were long, arduous treks with a rucksack full of equipment. The subsequent work on the computer remains physical too: days spent calculating, checking and post-processing the point clouds and meshes involve a great deal of sitting, waiting and repeated corrections. The digitisation of the glacier thus does not take place in isolation from the physical world, but arises from an interplay of landscape, technology and physical experience.

The characterisation of the glacier as a cultural, ecological and media space of memory is in line with the concept of the ‘Beyond Glaciation’ project, which is funded by the FWF – Austrian Science Fund as part of the Programme for the Development and Promotion of the Arts (PEEK). In this context, the Goldbergkees is not understood as a lifeless block of ice, but as a multi-layered interplay of nature, culture, myth and science.

The artistic research project is scheduled to run for four years. During this time, the glacier will continue to change, and this transformation will be vividly documented. Technology is also evolving, however, so new recording devices such as 360-degree drones and new techniques such as Gaussian splatting will be tested. Above all, however, the project will explore how the disappearance of glaciers can be conveyed aesthetically – not as a mere loss, but as a complex interplay of climate, landscape, technology, memory and cultural responsibility.