Forecast: Forecast was a cooperation between Adriart (EU project), IEM at KUG with its SysSon Project, Wegener Center for Clima and Global Change (Uni Graz) and the departments of Contemporary Art and Architecture and Media (TU Graz) in cooperation with FORUM STADTPARK.
As a mentor, I was in charge of the project’s development and served as a liaison between the different organizations. We worked in two stages, first with the students of Adriart, to generate three prototypes. One of the pieces was selected and implemented a year after. The initial workshop was rigorously planned, letting the students get in touch with intricate scientific knowledge. Also, the embodied experiences of weather were implemented. An essential part of the development was the interaction with sensors, which altered the composition and distribution of data across the exhibition. My task was then to generate a coherent immersive spatial setting with the students, which could display sensors that transform the impulses given by visitors into a modulation of the sound patterns.
Various strategies for sonic translations were implemented in the installation, based on evaluations within the research project SysSon and artistic decisions. The data used stems from a climate model and satellite measurements—simulations of around 200 years of past and future climates. An icosahedral unfolding of the earth’s spherical surface is an approach that goes back to the architect, Buckminster Fuller. This “Dymaxion” projection is the only flat map of the earth’s entire surface, which reveals our planet as one island in one ocean, without any visually noticeable distortion of the relative sizes of the land areas. This map is utilized in the sound layer of the system’s idle state and in most sonification layers. When data sets only specify longitudinal means, higher atmosphere levels are paired with the given latitudes. Finally, radiation-based data is provided globally and distributed across all channels using a granular pattern.
