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Aero Torrents, 2007
Medium: glass, water, sound
Dimensions: 2 aquariums of size: 100 x 150 x 22cmThe installation is a waveform sculpture projected on the surface of water by sonic vibration, derived from meteorological data acquired during extreme storms of recent years in Europe. The combination of three materials: air, water and sound simulates a chaotic ecosystem where recorded wind intensity and direction patterns are transferred by waves of sound.
For some years I lived in a city by the Northern See. In the autumn and winter, few times a year, strong storms occurred. A stream of air particles - wind - rushes and swirls with incredible speed and power, fluctuating in unpredictable force and intensity patterns. It caries dark clouds and forces waves to wash the sea out of it’s coasts, hits upon buildings and produces a terrifying acoustic landscape.
The installation can as well be conceived as a physical generative system, where the properties of environment remain constant as defined by the material properties of medium (water, dimensions of aquariums etc.) while the parametric information of the wind encoded into sonic signal functions as input of the process. The resonance patterns are modeled by the input signals, as the response of the resonant environment varies dramatically, depending on the input. The storm-carried information of the spectral energy of air currents is turned into sound, which is transferred into movement that agitates water masses, visualizing the air vibrations in the wave movement of the water.
Climate is described as a chaotic system that can be described by employing non-linear dynamics and strange attractors; yet no computing device, however capable, has so far been able to predict and interpret long-term weather conditions. Storms and winds have grown stronger over the past years, both in Latvia and elsewhere in the world, indicating climate change. Different indicators show that the world's climate is changing – the melting of Arctic ice, the positive North Atlantic Oscillation index of the past decades, and other signs show a dynamic process of change, conventionally called global warming or the greenhouse effect. One of the more noticeable manifestations of change is the increasing number and scale of natural disasters and storms that wreak devastation all over the world every year.
In nature, the wind is generated by the contrast in air pressure between adjoining atmospheric areas. A sharp difference creates strong winds that grow into storms. The changing intensity of wind currents suggests a similarity to sound waves (sound is a change in air pressure). A recorded wind waveform is a microscopic component indicative of an entire global ecosystem in which all events are connected through interaction and feedback relationships. As a part of a non-linear dynamic system, wind waveform depicts chaotic, but not random or predictable qualities.Presented at:
Waterworks, Randers Art Museum, Denmark, Swedbank Art Award, CAC Vilnius, Riga Art Space, Latvia, Electrohype, Malmo Konsthall, Sweden, WAVES, PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, Germany, Riga City Hall, Latvia, SKAN festival for soundart, Latvia