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Drawing The Atmosphere

Felicity Clear, National College of Art and Design Dublin

Recent research and work is concerned with the way space and time are conceptualised in maps and schema that come from meteorological observations of wind, cloud and other natural systems. My Initial research involved accessing expertise from colleagues in the Geography Department in University College Dublin which is affiliated to the National College Art and Design where I am a lecturer. I took a module in Weather and Climate with Professor Gerald Mills with whom I also consulted. I became very interested in the unusual and sophisticated ways in which line is used to visualise space and time in meteorological schema such as Azimuth and Hodograph diagrams. During this time I also visited the last manned mountain weather station in France in the Cevennes and the Centre Meteorologique in Paris where I accessed the archive of Artists/Meteorologist Andre des Gachons. Key concerns are investigating how drawing can communicate in different registers from diagram, to representational and imaginary drawing and what can happen when these forms collide and in doing so bring together both scientific and visual arts concerns.

I am investigating very local, as well as global weather systems and the area between symbolic description and the experiential. I have purchased a weather station and I am exploring how drawings can be made from live weather information derived from a combination of data from my own weather station and global data from internet sources. Using such data I generate two kinds of rhythmic gestures: free flowing cyclical rhythms reflecting the cosmic and vital time of nature and the linear rhythms of quantified and fragmented time imposed by the schematics of technology. I aim to weave together both types of gesture in a state of collision within the same work, or series of works, which draw attention to the different ways humans both feel as well as map and conceptualise atmospheres and the invisible conditions that drive their changing states. I am currently working with meteorologist Una Ni Chaoimh on conceptualisations of atmospheric dynamics.

I am hoping through the use of weather data, to add a new element in which to open up new ways of drawing, with the weather systems themselves having a role in the making of the work. In addition I hope to open up new ways of visualising and understanding natural systems. Underpinning this research is the question of what can drawing be and building on existing knowledge in relation to drawing in the expanded field, I hope to nudge the parameters of the possibilities of drawing and make new contributions to the field. In the background of this research and in relation to STEM education and exchange there is the urgency of the climate crisis and the necessity to increase natural literacy from direct observation and increased understanding of the world and its finely balanced systems. In this regard I see this research as a part of a greater discourse in contextualising climate based works.

Keywords: atmosphere, weather, drawing, line, meteorology