Come see our Water Barometer @ Flux Science Fair

Two Weekends: June 5-6/12-13, 12-6 PM

Science Fair @ Flux Factory
39-21 29th Street, Long Island City

Featuring a WATER BAROMETER
by SP Weather Station in collaboration with Daniel Robie

The first barometer wasn’t invented to measure air pressure.  In the 17th century, columns of water were used to disprove the church’s position that a true vacuum was impossible.  What people found (eventually) is that water can only be raised about 33 feet from the ground with any suction pump.  Galileo’s protege Evangelista Torricelli realized that such a column could be used to measure changes in the air.  He also realized that a much denser fluid, such as mercury, registers those changes on a much smaller (more scientifically convenient) scale.

Who needs convenience? At Flux Factory for the first two weekends in June, SPWS and Dan Robie, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, York College, CUNY, are measuring pressure with a tube of water the height of Flux Factory, in homage to the barometer’s history.  Come find out if it works!

Tomas Saraceno – Cloud Cities

Tomás Saraceno / Cloud Cities
Atelier Calder
19 June – 4 July 2010
12 Route du Carroi
F-37190 Saché, France

http://www.atelier-calder.com/

More info on e-flux:

Over the course of his residency at the Atelier Calder, 2009 Calder Prize laureate Tomás Saraceno has continued to develop his project Cloud Cities-Air Port City, a proposed use of space that empowers individuals, repositioning them beyond the confines of existing authoritative constructs. Saraceno describes the project as: “a structure that seeks to challenge today’s political, social, cultural and military restrictions in an attempt to reestablish new concepts of synergy. Up in the sky there will be this cloud, a habitable platform that floats in the air, changing form and merging with other platforms, just as clouds do. It will fly through the atmosphere pushed by the winds, both local and global, in an attempt to equalize the (social) temperature and differences in pressure.”

The opening celebration for “Cloud Cities” will take place on 19 – 20 June 2010, with an experimentation of a solar balloon flight on Sunday morning from 5:00 – 7:00, weather permitting. The Atelier Calder will be open to visitors on subsequent weekends from 14:00 – 18:00, and other days by appointment, until 4 July 2010.

Birgit Rathsmann, “Room for Storms”

Birgit Rathsmann, artist and 2009 SPWS Weather Interpreter (December) is presenting work in a temporary space at 163 Eldridge.

Upcoming:
Sunday, February 28th, 2010, 4PM and 5PM

Fronts
A performance by Ryan McNamara + Birgit Rathsmann
A weather forecaster shaman seeds and unleashes a human storm.
Featuring Kim Brandt, Samara Davis, Jack Ferver, Miriam Katz and Bevin McNamara

163 Eldridge Street near Delancey

On February 20th, Birgit created a one-night cinema to screen HurSeas08.mov, a looped and altered version of an NOAA video that condenses satellite imagery from the 2008 hurricane season, combining it with various soundtracks (of music both commissioned and found). Presented with video introductions by Hollis Witherspoon impersonating Werner Herzog, Birgit’s project has a peculiar blend of romanticism and irony.

SPWS 2008 Weather Reports @ IPCNY: Opens 1/14/10

SPWS 2008 Weather Reports on view in:

New Prints 2010/Winter
International Print Center New York

526 West 26th Street, Rm.824
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, New York, 10001

http://www.ipcny.org/exhib/exhib_np/edit_np_w10/w10_pr.html

On View: January 12 – February 20, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 14, 6-8 pm

Featuring works by Leah Beeferman, Natalie Campbell, Carrie Dashow, Neil Freeman, Richard Garrison, Michael Geminder, Katarina Jerinic, Daniel Larson, Bridget Lewis, Lize Mogel, Heidi Neilson, Chris Petrone, Sarah Nicole Phillips, Jing Yu, and Liz Zanis

Philly ‘Weather Report’ Report

Thanks to Lauren and Julie from AHN|VHS for a great opening and introduction to Philly. Many thanks also to all the participating artist-interpreters (Leah Beeferman, Carrie Dashow, Natalie Campbell, Susan G. Campbell, Mike Estabrook, Neil Freeman, Richard Garrison, Michael Geminder, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Emily Larned, Daniel Larson, Bridget Lewis, Lize Mogel, Heidi Neilson, Mark Nystrom, Chris Petrone, Sarah Nicole Phillips, Luke Strosnider, Jing Yu and Liz Zanis) for their contributions!

More images of the installation are here: http://ahnvhs.com/artwork/913524_SP_Weather_Station_Weather_Reports.html 
(click on the lower right under “next” to scroll through…)

Besides the show, highlights of the visit were an introduction to the (free, fantastic, little-known treasure) Wagner Free Institute of Science by librarian Lynn Dorwaldt; not only did we tour the museum’s collection of specimens and fossils, but we browsed the collection of 19th century meteorology books.

If you visit AHN|VHS (appointments are required, through August) ask to see the great (affordable!) selection of work in their flatfile; also check out the other great shows in the building (at Vox Populi (especially the great Reanimation Library installation), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (especially the wall with David Scanavino’s pulp pieces on top of a wall papered by Ethan Greenbaum), etc etc etc.

“To Let” Exhibition and SPWS Twilight Talk, Ithaca NY

“To Let” Exhibition

Opening reception Friday, July 3rd from 4-6PM!
(Walking tours depart at 4:30pm and 5:30pm)
Bernie Milton Pavilion, Ithaca Commons, Ithaca NY

Followed by a Twilight Talk by SP Weather Station: ”Taxonomy of Taxonom(ies) of Clouds,” Ithaca Commons Amphitheater ~ 9 PM

“To Let” is a collaborative community project that invites landlords to temporarily donate the use of unrented retail spaces to the program and engages artists to create installations in storefront windows. (more info: http://toletartprogram.blogspot.com/)

Organized and curated by The Working Relationship, sponsored by the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, and supported by local landlords, ”To Let” features projects by local, regional and national artists. The first round of to Let presents works by SP Weather Station (Natalie Campbell, Heidi Neilson & Daniel Larson), Jessica Evett-Miller, Lindsey Glover, Roman Hrab, M. Michelle Illuminato, Paul M. Nicholson, Tom Oberg and others.   Projects include the “Weather Metabulator,” using real time weather data to create output using an adapted, vintage medical device; “A Plastic Garden” turning cast-off materials and donated plastic flowers into a growing diorama; “Night and Day” using sound and images of surveillance to investigate privacy in public spaces; and “Colonial Left” displaying objects of the Colonial style to question their meaning in our lives.

The SPWS Weather Metabulator is on view in the 208 E. State Street storefront.

Sunday 4/26: Queens International 4 Closing Party!

The Queens International 4 closes Sunday, April 26th!

We would like to thank all of the collaborators* who participated in the SP Weather Station installation at the Queens Museum.

There is a full program of events for the closing day including SP Weather Station: Weather Sounds in the Panorama of the City of New York from 2-3 pm.  Please see the full schedule below, we hope to see you there!

Sunday, April 26th 12-6pm
Queens Museum of Art
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
for details/directions: www.queensmuseum.org/information/
(open to the public / museum admission is $5 suggested donation)

QI4 Closing Extravaganza
Headlined by Future Shock, an Indo-Caribbean crew with thumping sound system bikes, QMA and Transportation Alternatives invite bike gangs, art bikes, bike advocacy groups, modders, bike clubs and bike crews (including Lightwheels, Mexican Pride, Transalt, Bike NY, C.L.I.M.B., City Reliquary Bike Club and others) to close the Queens International 4 with a bang!
[If you are biking out and want company riding to QMA, you can do the museum to museum ride with the City Reliquary Bike Club, departing CR (370 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg) at 2pm.]

Schedule of events:
12-4pm: NYC DOT Helmet giveaway
1-3pm: Learn to Ride – Kids 5+ class with Bike NY
1-3pm: Take part in Derick Melander’s Into the Fold project in QMA galleries
2-3pm: SP Weather Station: Weather Sounds in the Panorama
2-3pm: Whitney ISP alum Ryan Humphrey talk in Large Theater
2:30-3:30: Future Shock leads a bike rally around the park
3-6: Tim Thyzel boat launch and discovery of The Undiscovered Atoll of Flushtopia with Anti-Fascist Culture Club (via trolley ride to Meadow Lake!)
3-6pm: happy hour in QMA cafe (while supplies last)
3-5pm: BMX pros ride Ryan Humphrey’s installation Fast Forward
3-6pm: Tabling in Tents Outside Museum: Lightwheels, Transalt, Bike NY, C.L.I.M.B.(Concerned Long Island Mountain Bicyclists), Green Map System, Mexican Pride, The Undiscovered Atoll of Flushtopia Tourist Bureau, Okamoto Studio ice carving, and Ixrael’s mobile printmaking workshop
4:30-6: Bands Play: Shining Mantis, Tough Slutting, Unstoppable Death Machines, Elextra, Karahatu (outside, by the Unisphere)
Ongoing: Chin Chih Yang Trash Sculpture3

*SP Weather Station’s participation in the Queens International 4 features contributions from: Leah Beeferman, Natalie Campbell, Susan Goethel Campbell, Carrie Dashow, Mike Estabrook, Neil Freeman, Richard Garrison, Michael Geminder, Isaac Gertman, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Daniel Larson, Bridget Lewis, Lize Mogel, Heidi Neilson, Chris Petrone, Sarah Nicole Phillips, Andrea Polli, Chuck Varga, Jing Yu, Liz Zanis; lectures have featured Isaac Gertman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Nathalie Miebach, and Jane D. Marsching.  More info: http://spweatherstation.net/?page_id=120

Weather Suits for Cities

This past Saturday, Nathalie Miebach spoke at the Queens Museum of Art as part of the SPWS guest lecture series, and in conjunction with Queens International 4 Public Programs.

Nathalie described how she takes weather data and translates it by hand into amazing woven sculptures. Data for specific periods of time and place are represented by color, material or type of placement—parameters defined ahead of time—and then the sculpture emerges in the weave from the dictates of the data, the end result not known at the outset.

Taking direct atmospheric observations into account through recent art residencies in very different weather environments—the tides of Cape Cod and the tornados of Nebraska—she explores the role visual aesthetics and personal experience play in understanding scientific information.

The weather data in her sculptural forms can also be interpreted as music, where a new sort of musical score can be read directly, in a spiral, from the weave. She is currently collaborating with musicians to interpret these sculptures-as-music, and played 2 examples of remarkably different interpretations of the same sculpture, one by horn, one by piano.

For more information on Nathalie’s work, and where to see it in person at her upcoming shows,  visit www.nathaliemiebach.com. Thanks much to Nathalie for sharing your work with us!

SP Weather Station in Queens International 4

Please join us!

SP Weather Station in:
QUEENS INTERNATIONAL 4: A Biennial Survey of Artists Living or Working in Queens January 24 – April 26, 2009

Opening reception: Saturday, January 24, 6pm-12am featuring live performances & screenings

Queens Museum of Art
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens

Featuring contributions from:

Andrea Polli and Chuck Varga of Hello Weather!
(www.eyebeam.org/hello-weather): Guest Weather Station on the QMA Rooftop

Daniel Larson: Weather Metabulator

Leah Beeferman, Natalie Campbell, Susan Goethel Campbell, Carrie Dashow, Mike Estabrook, Neil Freeman, Richard Garrison, Michael Geminder, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Daniel Larson, Bridget Lewis, Lize Mogel, Heidi Neilson, Chris Petrone, Sarah Nicole Phillips, Jing Yu, Liz Zanis: SP Weather Reports, January 2008 – February 2009

As well as Guest Lecture Posters, a Cloud Identification Area, and MORE!

Upcoming SP Weather Station Guest Lectures at QI4:

Saturday, February 7, 2pm: Nathalie Miebach
Boston-based sculptor who translates weather data into woven sculptures, speaking about her evolving project “Weather Suits for Cities” and related work

Sunday, March 1, Time TBD:
In conjunction with MetLife First Sundays for Families at the QMA, SPWS presents 3 talks in the Queens Museum’s Panorama of the City of New York:
Isaac Gertman video presentation: Weather Apocalypse NYC
Kenneth Goldsmith reads from his book, “The Weather”
SP Weather Station slideshow on Clouds of New York

Saturday, April 4, 2pm: Jane Marsching
Digital media artist speaking about her current project, “Arctic Listening Post,” and related work

extreme weather snowglobe workshop

Lots of productive activity at yesterday’s Extreme Weather Snowglobe workshop as a part of Eyebeam’s ‘Holiday Hackshop 2008.’