This project is about living life, and using it to collect information. If you align your life with something, your life will create an accurate picture of that thing.
Me as data.
The project is comprised of two stages, Stage #1: Data Collection and Stage #2: Data Presentation. The first stage is a complete immersion into the rainfall patterns of the London area over a four week period. Life revolves around the presence and absence of rain. Three types of data are collected: recorded, observed, and recounted. They are explained here. This data is then compared to that of “official” weather stations. These stations I love very dearly, but there is an adversarial feeling here, a me vs. them attitude.
The second stage merely presents my life over the course of the four weeks. It is a collection of actions, photographs, and words. In showing you my life, I am showing you the rain.
Stage #1: Data Collection
Okay, Stage #1. For a period of 4 weeks life revolves around the rain. Data was collected from 15th January - 11th February. Three types of data were collected: Recorded, Observed, and Recounted. The different
collection methods are explained breifly below. Each stems from a specific strain of research, which might someday be explained here. The competitor data sources are also explained.
Recorded: My data
Put simply, if rain is present I am unhealthy, if it is not I am healthy. The rain determines all decisions regarding health. This covers decisions about food, exercise, transport, and smoking/drinking. Weight and BMI (body mass index) are recorded at 8 am every morning, and an image is taken to show visible progress.
Recorded: Their Data
The actual rainfall measurements taken at 15 minute interval at the Crouch End Weather Station.
view site
Observed: My Data
Observed data is the simplest type of data. It is the weather that we experience.
Coming in contact with the weather allows one to say, without a
doubt, that a certain type of weather took place.
Data is series of photographs of the sky
Observed: Their Data
Radar images taken from the Met Office site. Updated every hour. Radar image colors changed because of atrociousness.
view site
Recounted: My Data
Recounted data is a written recollection of the weather for the day. It
forgoes instrumental data, instead using plain english to explain what
occured meteorologically during the day.
Recounted: Their Data
The Met Office keeps a little diary of themselves, not very extensive, but it is a text-based recounting of the weather.
view site
Stage #2: Data Presentation
The final presentation takes the form of a series of books. There are 12. There is 1 book per data type (3), per week (4), 3×4=12. Each book folds out to create perfect circle. The three data types form concentric
circles, the largest being the recorded data which measures 1.75 meters across.
All 12 books. The 3 different data types going across, and the 4 weeks going down.
Right: Covers from one week.
Below: Spreads from a day.
Spread from recorded data book.
Spread from observed data book.
Spread from recounted data book.
Right: Broken spine so books can be opened to create a perfect 1.7 meter circle.
Below: Books opened up and put on wall.
(and some research)
During the course of our projects we must constantly show our research, I will give you a short glimpse of it this one time.
Carrol Livingston Riker
A true hero in the history of big things. A true hero to young Jake Hobart.
Carrol set out to make the world a better place, an admirable task. Among many grandious plans to do this lies his unfinished masterpiece. A 200 mile long jetty spanning the North Sea. The jetty would halt the icy cold Labrador current coming from the arctic. The Labrador current is famous for meeting up with the jet stream and shooting it easterly. With the Labrador current blocked by a massive jetty the Jet Stream is free to roll up further north, melting the ice caps of Greenland, then on to create fertile farmlands across Scandanavia and then into northern Russia and Siberia, while changed the rotation of the earth as well.
Lewis Fry Richardson
"for it was thought that those who compute the weather should breathe of it freely"
Lewis is smarter than you. Lewis was a pacifist, so while serving during the WWI he was assigned to ambulance duty. He sat and looked at the sky, and started writing a formula to predict the weather. It spans hundreds of pages. In 1922 it was published. It is still in use today.
Diagrams from a meteorological revolution
Other Meteorological Eccentrics
George James Symons, James Pollard Espy, Luke Howard, Ellsworth Huntington, etc. No flashy clothes, no indie rock, no big sunglasses, no squirrely movements, just fine suits and big thoughts.
Luke, James, George, Ellsworth
Weather Diaries
Before the use of instruments to collect data on weather, personal weather diaries were used. Often times kept by non-professionals these were a curious form of recording. Facts about weather such as wind speed, barometric pressure, rainfall, etc. are sometime interspersed with personal reflections, stories about livestock, town gossip, and other interesting pieces of non-weather realated information.
Weather Modification
So much to say. Vietnam. HAARP. Terraforming. China. Silver Iodide. Warfare. Vladamir Putin. Etc. One of the most interesting and controversial topics you could ever come across.
Laki Volcano
The eruption in 1783 causes interesting meteorological phenomena that in turn created interest in meteorology, which created a young new breed of passionate meteorologists.
People
Just walking around and seeing people in the rain.
Hatred for Umbrellas
I hate them more than Bono.
