This lab took place from Friday 20 – Sunday 22 January, Amsterdam

Public programme: Thursday 19 January & Sunday 22 January 

Weather, we experience its effects daily and it is perhaps the most commonly used topic for small talk. In a nutshell, it is the daily condition of the atmosphere. Yet people generally know little about how meteorological phenomena work and the complexity, stratification and scale of weather systems. Besides reading (news) reports, Europeans experience up close that the weather is increasingly changing and becoming more extreme in nature, resulting in deadly situations. Where the weather in the Global South has been radically changing for decades, now the Global North too cannot escape the facts.

To gain more knowledge on how the weather works, the relationship between weather and climate as well as the relationships between weather measurements and the development of contemporary forecasting models and computer technology, FIBER’s Weatherscapes lab provides a temporary platform for interdisciplinary research and the development of artistic experiments, which serve as the basis for new performances, installations or multimedia stories. 

Weatherscapes welcomes research into turbulence, temperatures, precipitation and wind patterns. Or the composition of the atmosphere, with a focus on the troposphere; the space where most meteorological activities take place. At the same time, there is also interest in research that is historical or socio-cultural in nature.

With Weatherscapes, FIBER aims to increase knowledge and literacy around the weather, approaching it through artistic research and the exchange of knowledge between makers and thinkers. In what ways can information be an artistic starting point or material for new works and stories? How can audiovisual art, creative coding and design offer new perspectives? Weatherscapes aims to serve as a meeting place for artists, designers, activists and researchers working within these topics.

TO OPEN CALL

During the lab – spread over three days – the domains of data, visualisation, sonification and observations will be explored, bringing together a selection of artistic creators and (scientific) researcher to work on knowledge exchange, research, attending workshops/lectures and working on sketches and prototypes for new artistic productions.

Above all, the lab is a meeting place for connoisseurs and interested parties to get to know each other, share knowledge and skills and perhaps set off with new collaborations.

As part of the lab, a field trip will be organised and workshops and lectures are planned. The preliminary programme looks like this:

• Thursday 19/01 (evening)
  Public programme + participants welcome

• Friday 20/01
  Lab day 1 – field trip & working sessions

• Saturday 21/01
  Lab day 2 – lecture/workshop & working sessions

• Sunday 22/01
  Lab day 3 – lecture/workshop & working sessions

• Sunday 22/01 (evening)
  Open Lab Session – final presentations (open for the public)

The Weatherscapes Talks aims to share knowledge on the complexity, vastness, and agency of weather systems. To foster a weather literacy, understand climate and the mechanisms behind the climate emergency, and provide a temporary meeting place for makers, thinkers, and everyone interested in art relating to weather.

What do we know about the weather, apart from our daily embodied experience and media weather forecasts reaching us through a vast structure apparatus of sensing machines, databases, and prediction models? When we look up into the sky, do we have an understanding of its composition, scale, and interactions with the world we live in? Now that weather is becoming ever more extreme and deadly by nature, under the impact of a warming planet, can we relate to these changes?

THE WEATHERSCAPES TALKS

On Thursday, January 19, FIBER invites you to an evening of talks at Tolhuistuin where artistic and scientific perspectives on weather meet. The representation of weather has an age-old tradition within the arts, and nowadays, we believe it’s important that digital culture can to contribute to a ‘weather literacy’.

During this evening, a variety of speakers will offer different perspectives on the weather, how it changes in nature and what ways there are to read weather systems. On the one hand, this is through a scientific approach, visualising weather and climate change, in a mathematical, historical, and data-based way. In which the translation of data into stories on a human scale also becomes apparent. On the other hand, there is a focus on artistic perspectives and research, using weather as an artistic medium. How it’s a lived experience with sensory, embodied, and socio-political effects outside of the data-sphere.

Janette Bessembinder

(speaker public programme)

Janette Bessembinder works at KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; since 2005) as senior advisor climate services. She is involved in climate services development, inventories of users’ requirements related to climate (change) data and information, and tailoring of climate data for users ranging from impact/adaptation researchers, companies to policy makers. 

Annelie Berner

(micro lecture/workshop host)

Annelie Berner is a designer and researcher. In her work, she uses data visualisation, experience design and futurescaping to bridge science, academia and the public. She works on research topics that range from ethics of new technologies to climate science. She has won multiple honours in the Core77 Design Awards and has exhibited projects at the Smithsonian Museum and World Health Organisation among others.

Daphne Dragona

(speaker public programme)

Daphne Dragona is an independent curator and writer based in Berlin. In
her work she addresses issues such as the ambiguities of connectivity,
the challenges of the commons, and the role of technology in an era of
climate crisis. Her exhibitions have been hosted at the premises of
Onassis Stegi, LABoral, Aksioma, EMST and other institutions.

Mint Park

(speaker/workshop host)

Mint Park is a Seoul-born, sound, and new media artist who works at an intersection of music, technology, science, and art. In recent years she has been researching the phenomenon of turbulence and making a weather-like ecosystem of fluid dynamics with sound, air, and lights. Her audio-visual practice focuses on the experience of the inter-weaving physical environment and virtual spaces within immersive environments.

Jan Christian Schultz

(micro lecture/workshop host)

Jan Christian Schulz graduated from the Social Design Masters program at the DAE, where he investigated the emergence of ecosystemic relationships through technological media. Operating on the intersection of design and science, he complements his theoretical work with the creation of socio-ecological interventions mediating a sensorial perception of environmental transformations.

Mark IJzerman

(mentor/workshop host)

Mark IJzerman is an interdisciplinary artist working on the intersection of ecology and media art. IJzerman uses digital technologies to create processes that have their own agency, to make works creating intimacy between us and the other-than-human. His work is always informed by field research as well as working with other professionals.
He has performed his A/V works at FIBER Festival among others.

Critical Tool Analysis

Parallel to the ‘making’, Weatherscapes critically reflects on historical and sociopolitical contexts. Who develops the tools and platforms we use? Do they help with creating solutions? Do they add fuel to the fire? What possibilities are there for artistic practices to adapt their use, or even reassemble them to accommodate representation and inclusion? A network of researchers will investigate the lab methods, techniques and principles and disseminate them through our platform.

Accessibility and Equity

Based on improving accessibility and equity, we offer the opportunity to contact us if the indicated fee create a barrier to participation. We are committed to discuss options and altered prices settings. This can also be done after submitting the open call information. If there are any questions about physical accessibility for the lab, please also contact us. We are available to help. Please contact: Allegra Greher

Diversity and Inclusion

In addition to understanding our entanglement with a multispecies reality, the lab will  strive to bring together a rich prism of perspectives – including feminist, queer,  non-binary, trans and voices of color – to share resources, time and space with many different imaginations of our near-future societies. We warmly welcome participants from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds and people from LGBTQIA+ communities.

Despite some of the technical aspects of the lab, the focus will be on unlocking and  accessing a wide variety of (non-coding) skills. This will be done through  interdisciplinary collaboration and conceptual approaches to topics. Therefore, the lab will also be a valuable environment for newcomers to narrative, sonification and visualization techniques.