[-empyre-] [EXT] Open Weather

Tue Dec 15 19:38:17 AEDT 2020

Hi Dan and Empyre List members,

Thanks for your question about the critical frameworks in open-weather. You are right that contributors to the open-weather archive are invited to let us know whether they have used an open-weather critical framework in the reception of their satellite imagery.

In the recently published 'open-weather feminist handbook<http://almanacprojects.com/public-programme/open-weather-feminist-handbook>', soon to be added to open-weather.community<https://open-weather.community/>, we discuss critical frameworks like this:

Open-weather meshes together satellite image decoding and technologies of weather sensing with critical and feminist theory, artistic gestures and performance methodologies. We call these interventions in technology, theory and performance our ‘critical frameworks’. At the time of writing there are three fully developed critical frameworks: the Satellite séance; Open work, second body, and the Community nowcast. These critical frameworks use specific feminist tactics and ways of thinking to tell stories about weather sensing and satellite decoding and its different histories. In doing so we question dominant narratives and approaches of the technical and scientific spheres in which open-weather operates.

The open-weather feminist handbook also includes a list of resources to point toward the articles, books, media and archives that inspire our feminist methodologies.

In another chapter in the handbook, called "We learn from alternative histories of sensing and séance" we draw out some of the historical references that inspire our critical frameworks, from the 'clairvoyant network' of the 19th century to Anton Mesmer's archive of mesmerism.

Thanks again for your questions and for the invitation to participate in the Accumulations exhibition and website! Feel free to contact us with more questions, or for support in DIY satellite signal decoding.

Best wishes,

Sasha and Sophie

Dr. Sasha Engelmann (she/her)
Lecturer in GeoHumanities
Royal Holloway University of London
www.sashaengelmann.com
instagram: @sasha_intheair
twitter: @sashacakes

________________________________
From: Daniel Lichtman <danielp73 at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2020 6:56 PM
To: empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
Cc: Engelmann, Sasha <Sasha.Engelmann at rhul.ac.uk>; Sophie Dyer <dyer.sophie at gmail.com>; sophiedyer at protonmail.com <sophiedyer at protonmail.com>
Subject: [EXT] Open Weather

Hi Sophie and Sasha,

Thanks so much for sharing your project, Open Weather! To give the empyre community some context about your work, I’m including your bios at the end of this email. I love the sentence from your intro email, ‘co-created by observers who are weathering – experiencing – the very conditions that they are recording’.  It points to Open Weather’s exploration of human bodies in space, who are experiencing both atmospheric and social conditions, intercepting and recording a distant, scientific rendering of these conditions.

I encourage everyone to check out this amazing project on the Accumulations website, and also to click through to the links that Sophie and Sasha provided that explain how to record weather data imagery using affordable equipment and software, and to access the database of recordings submitted by participants in the project. http://accumulations.online/openweather.html<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccumulations.online%2Fopenweather.html&data=04%7C01%7CSasha.Engelmann%40rhul.ac.uk%7C6ad5a2f43b2b48aad5f008d8a0620bfa%7C2efd699a19224e69b601108008d28a2e%7C0%7C0%7C637435690253486774%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=uozFebwGNHw9hbVCTIyOzGclSfhLZrGC5AMn0mi5wTM%3D&reserved=0>

Sasha and Sophie - I noticed in the Open Weather archive that contributors selected a ‘critical framework’ for their submission. Could you tell us about these frameworks? I’d also love to hear a little more about what you mean by feminist tactics of sensing, and also about seance, which you mentioned at the start of your email. I think it’d be really interesting to hear about other examples of feminist sensing that you draw inspiration from.

Feel free to discuss any/all aspects of these questions!

Looking forward,

Dan

Artist bios:

Sophie Dyer<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsophiedyer.net%2F&data=04%7C01%7CSasha.Engelmann%40rhul.ac.uk%7C6ad5a2f43b2b48aad5f008d8a0620bfa%7C2efd699a19224e69b601108008d28a2e%7C0%7C0%7C637435690253486774%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Y0RoMepuy1ZbGmJS83A28BtIQbkl2sQWTFFulK%2FNojU%3D&reserved=0> is a feminist researcher, designer, and activist, specialised in visual and open source investigations. She works with Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab and is an Affiliate of The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Sasha Engelmann<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sashaengelmann.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7CSasha.Engelmann%40rhul.ac.uk%7C6ad5a2f43b2b48aad5f008d8a0620bfa%7C2efd699a19224e69b601108008d28a2e%7C0%7C0%7C637435690253496771%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=dGfBC5oBQQy6N0a8jPGIXQvmova0fhAwFJv7q%2F8M03g%3D&reserved=0> explores interdisciplinary, feminist and creative approaches to environmental sensing. She is Lecturer in GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway University of London and a current fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart.

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