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AMOSPHERE OF RIVERS CUBE
WATERSHED ART AND ECOLOGY, 2025
CHICAGO
W= 1.50 m H= 2.0 m D= 1 m
ONE CHANNEL VIDEO INSTALLATION, 3D ANIMATION, CARTOGRAPHY, MIRRORS, ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR FROM THE NATIONAL OCEANIC ATMOSPHERE
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.
The sculpture is experienced from two viewing points that break the space, proposing an infinite view of the water cycle. From neither vantage point is it possible to see the other side, a spatial condition that gestures toward the negative space in our perception of hyperobjects—those vast, distributed Earth systems that exceed human scale and comprehension.
In 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 blurs the lines between local and global, natural and technological, human and more-than-human.