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ATMOSPHERE OF RIVER MURMURATION
ATMOSPHERE OF RIVERS
MURMURATIONS 2023
CHICAGO
4 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 adapted into the architecture of the gallery: embedded screens within the wall and double-sided mirrors create a singular vantage point, where the white wall itself becomes a void—an opening into the water cycle and the vapor exchange between Amazon and California.
Within the installation, this long-term atmospheric circulation 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, it 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 boundaries between local and global, natural and technological, human and more-than-human.