Join us on Thursday 9th February at 6pm GMT (1pm EST) for the online launch of When I image the earth, I imagine another, an eBook publication and third commission for the NN Branch of Library Stack.
When I image the earth, I imagine another is a multiform image of the earth and its weather systems produced on the first day of the COP26 climate change conference held in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021. The publication is authored by Sasha Engelmann and Sophie Dyer (open-weather) and Daniel Powers and Lizzie Malcolm (Rectangle).
The authors will be in conversation with Daisy Hildyard about the eBook, which compiles images and field notes contributed by numerous participants around the world and constitutes an archive of changing planetary conditions.
About the eBook
When I image the earth, I imagine another asks: What would it mean to collectively image, and in doing so, reimagine the planet? To see its details and patterns from many situated positions? If we could each take a photo of our home from space, could we build a patchwork, an impossible view, another whole earth? On the first day of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, a network of people operating DIY satellite ground stations around the world captured a collective snapshot of the earth and its weather systems: a ‘nowcast’ for an undecided future. Tuning into transmissions from three National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites orbiting 800 km above Earth’s surface, members of the network collected imagery and submitted field notes from their different locations. Combined, these contributions create a fractal image of the earth: a record of weather at different scales in which alternative patterns and relations emerge.
When I image the earth, I imagine another continues the experimental digital publishing program of NN Contemporary and Library Stack, accessed through the NN Contemporary Art Public Branch, our joint lending library at <https://nn.librarystack.org>. In dialogue with NN’s own research and exhibition aims, this Library Stack branch contributes to a longer-term exploration of the infrastructure for the loaning and borrowing of digital objects, new definitions of ‘the local’, and alternative publishing models for the culture sector.
About open-weather
Founded in April 2020, open-weather is a feminist experiment in imaging and imagining the earth and its weather systems using DIY community tools. Co-organised by researcher-designer Sophie Dyer and geohumanities scholar Sasha Engelmann, open-weather encompasses a series of accessible how-to guides, public artworks and inclusive workshops on the reception of meteorological satellite images using free, open-source or inexpensive amateur radio technologies. In the tradition of intersectional feminism, open-weather investigates the politics of location and interlocking oppressions that shape our capacities to observe, negotiate, and respond to the climate emergency. In doing so, the project challenges dominant representations of earth and environment, while complicating ideas of the weather beyond the meteorological.
About Rectangle
Rectangle is a graphic and interaction design studio based in Glasgow, Scotland and founded by Daniel Powers and Lizzie Malcolm in 2017. We work with information and technology and content and form to develop projects in various media.
About Daisy Hildyard
Daisy Hildyard’s first novel, Hunters in the Snow, received the Somerset Maugham Award and a ‘5 under 35’ honorarium at the USA National Book Awards. Her essay The Second Body, a brilliantly lucid account of the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017. She lives with her family in North Yorkshire, where she was born.
About Library Stack
Library Stack is an archive and lending library for new digital projects across visual art, design, architecture, film and theory.
Access notes
The event will happen on Zoom Webinar. A link will be emailed to attendees. This event will be live captioned, transcription will be available afterwards and it will be recorded for archival purposes. For help with how to set up Zoom and accessibility enquiries, email sonia@nncontemporaryart.org.