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ATMOSPHERE OF RIVER SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE
ATMOSPHERE OF RIVERS
SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUE 2023
CHICAGO
8 CHANNEL VIDEO INSTALLATION
Atmosphere of Rivers is an immersive video installation that visualizes thirty years of atmospheric river data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tracing the invisible hydrological bond between the Amazon Rainforest and California. Each day, the Amazon exhales vast volumes of water vapor into the atmosphere, influencing the formation of atmospheric rivers that, in turn, shape climate events such as floods and wildfires on the other side of the continent.
For this exhibition version, the work is reimagined through eight embedded screens set into the wall and framed with double-sided mirrors, creating two singular viewing points. The white wall becomes a void—an opening into the water cycle and the vapor exchange between Amazon and California. Each viewing window is set within a minimalist frame, punctuated by a circular aperture that invites the audience to lean closer. Approaching the opening draws the viewer into a curve of reflections, where the two windows appear to join in infinity—evoking the way two seemingly distant territories, Amazon and California, are in fact bound within a greater atmospheric cycle.
Within the installation, this long-term water exchange is rendered as a responsive digital fabric. As the magnitude of vapor traveling from the Amazon to California increases, the fabric tenses; as it decreases, the fabric loosens. This shifting surface becomes a tactile and visual metaphor for the way atmosphere weaves geographies together, allowing the audience to both see and feel the fluctuations of planetary circulation.
The work proposes atmosphere as a collective membrane, woven by the interplay of human and non-human forces—a biosphere that bounces water back and forth between terrestrial and aerial boundaries, like an infinite mirror. In doing so, it collapses the lines between local and global, natural and technological, human and more-than-human.