During the summer heat wave, there’s a way to cool down in Chelsea and let the team from the Science Gallery at Trinity College challenge you to think differently about the splashing water you take for granted.

Take advantage of the final weeks of Surface Tension: The Future of Water at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center on West 21^st Street, an incubator for digital art/design experimentation. For the past two-plus months, they’ve hosted an exhibition (first curated in Dublin) on the social-economic-political tensions created by water scarcity.

As soon as you walk into Eyebeam, you’ll be struck by the plethora of infographics that show you just how much water bounty that we have in the United States versus the availability and consumption per capita in the rest of the world. What’s your water footprint?

One of the ways you’ll find out is by looking at The Virtual Water Project, a celebrated infographic by German designer Tim Kekeritz, that depicts everyday objects and the amount of water required to produce them. Download the iPhone app. For $1.99, it will blow your mind (but not your budget) and continue to deliver a truly a conscious-raising experience of epic proportion.

Another unforgettable experience is Bit.Fall by artist Julius Popp, an installation that translates words from Internet newsfeeds into bits that are reconverted into a stunning waterfall of words:

There’s so much great stuff: multiple takes on water consumption, conservation, next-gen thinking, third-world innovations, and art-meets-technology solutions. Like Tele-Present Water by David Bowen, which recreates actual water movements from NOAA data being collected from a random buoy out in the ocean.

If you can’t get over to Chelsea for an hour, just click through the thought-provoking objects, artworks, design solutions, documentaries, and thought pieces by the scientists, artists, engineers, and designers whose works are on display on the Dublin microsite.