Weather Between Us – open-weather

2024-03-18 09:35:45

Sasha Engelmann

, United Kingdom

Last night, while sitting in the corner of the park on a bench under a streetlamp, an older, long-beareded man on a bike stopped, circled around, and told me I was 'too far into the park'. He advised me to go to the edge of Downs road to be safe, and added 'you are my daughter too'. This encounter stayed with me as I went back to the park this morning for a satellite pass, and looked at the distance between the bench and the streetcorner – a matter of metres – but in the dark, perhaps much more than that.

2024-01-27 11:34:33

Sasha Engelmann

Abney Park Cemetery, London, United Kingdom

Abney Park Cemetery was muddy, wet, and full of dog walkers and strollers on this Saturday Morning. The density of the winter trees and the humidity of the air created a mist that felt appropriate to the vine-covered tomb-stones, monuments and crosses. I thought of the way early radio enthusiasts heard 'something in the static' that spoke of other spaces and times of the past and future. I pointed my antenna at the moist ground, wondering if the static would pick up frequencies underneath.

2024-03-28 11:42:10

Sasha Engelmann

Aire de Châteauvillain, France

The rather grandly named 'Aire de Chateauvillain' is a gas station, electric car charger port and a food court with a Paul and a bistro. After waking at 6am and driving the best part of the day, my partner and I were absolutely starving, but we had trouble finding anything to eat. After being shown to a table between two other traveling couples, we were turned away from the bistro when they said they were 'out' of both the squash soup I wanted, the cheese plate we were going to share, and the goat cheese in the salad my partner ordered. As many other people were eating there, I had a sneaking suspicion that the bistro wasn't really 'out' of all of these separate dishes (how can a french bistro be out of chevre!? or cheese in general?!) but that we were turned away for other reasons. We made the best of it, and after I captured a rather noisy satellite image from NOAA-18, we went on our way.

2024-03-31 12:04:22

Asperleiten (favourite place), Wienerwald, Austria

We went seeking satellites and Saharan Dust. Last night, I discovered the chrome mudguards of my bicycle patterned with rust coloured droplets. N said that they look like small galaxies. Now we are walking to my favourite tree-lined field in the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods). The light levels have increased, but even when the sun is out there is a thick haze. On reaching the field, I slip on a golden vest, clip belt and tool pouch. The beautifully gender neutralising astronaut-athleisure 'look' is intended to disrupt the documentary style photos we are about to take. Stood in the centre of the field among tubular Cowslip flowers, I scan the Northern horizon with the antenna while N snaps away on my iPhone. I almost forget to adjust the antenna's Gain. When I do, NOAA-18 appears. We spend the next 10 minutes enacting a satellite hunt, much to the confusion of a couple who walk past twice with two yapping lap dogs. The results of the very real satellite hunt photoshoot are great. To have spotted the iron and mineral-rich Dust cloud in imagery two days ago, and to now be immersed in it, to be experiencing it as 'weather', is uncanny. The walk to the bus home is longer and sweatier than I expected. A warm wind is being drawn North, and presumably with it the dust – a billion small crystalline galaxies.

2024-05-22 09:25:54

At home, Hernals, Wien, Austria

The air is fresh. Broken sun and wind. I left the bedroom window open during the night and half-asleep-half-awake dreamt of a fierce wind, rain lashing the window, and flying debris. I have been thinking and writing about 'fire weather'. This morning, staring my left eye that had swollen shut in the night, for not apparent reason, I wondered if inflammation is a an internal, bodily fire weather.

2024-02-05 20:36:24

At home, on the window ledge., Austria

Turbulence: outside, between me and my partner, in my body. I saw on a forecast map that the jet stream is between me and Sasha. The winds leaving London appear to arrive in Vienna. I like this thought, that we are asynchronously sharing the same air. I imagine messages, aeroplankton (Luftplankton), and water vapour moving between us.

2024-03-01 22:06:11

At home, Wien, Austria

2024-03-04 21:28:15

At home, Wien, Austria

2024-03-06 19:34:04

At home, Wien, Austria

2024-04-26 20:17:23

At home, Wien, Austria

2024-04-27 23:04:59

At home, Wien, Austria

2024-06-03 20:48:20

At home, Wien, Austria

I have skipped two days of weather notes. It’s Monday. Thunder rolls as Sasha and I frequency shift from one open-weather Zoom call after another. First we heard from L and D in Scotland about how the satellite image decoder is up and running, and the redesign of the Public Archive is almost complete! We then spoke to G in Berlin who shared with us the code that he is writing for the automatic satellite ground stations. Together we started to speculate about how the 3D printed casing of the satellite ground stations could be. We imagine the ground station box resting on a bedroom bookshelf or mounted the wall of an art gallery. We tingled with excitement, encouraging each other in the game of visualising the work complete. In between, Sasha and I spoke with J, a curator in Barcelona who is planning an exhibition on the themes of navigation and orientation … let's see. I took some Ibuprofen to avert a migraine and then couldn't stop sneezing. Sasha giggle when, I turned of my camera instead of muting and loudly blew my running nose. As my work day ended, the thunder storm moved overhead. On a call with just Sasha , we draw on our remaining brain power and belief, I shared my proposal for a sounded-based transmission for the Year of Weather project. Inspired by the desire to 'meet people where they are' and by how past feminist alliances such as F.I.R.E. in Costa Rica and Pirate Radio Women in Ireland used radio to share with their community counter narratives and information, the transmission would share our weather notes intermingled with the realtime local weather updates of a meteorology service. A second important reference is the "VOLMET" radio broadcasts that are rolling weather forecasts for aircraft, read out often by highly gendered and increasingly automated female voices. Before hanging up, Sasha and I began to test the proposal and to think through different scenarios. I had planned to squeeze in a hours more work but my brother called and we spoke almost two hours. It rare that we speak for so long on the phone, so the call was special. Lightening seemed to knock of the signal so I move around the flat, searching for a more stable signal, plugging in my phone to different wall sockets.

2024-06-17 12:37:54

At home, Wien, Austria

I rush out between Zooms calls to receive this satellite image on the balcony. The weather is warm dry, my mood is light, even joyful. I prop the my phone up on a potted Yuca, so as to get the tomato plants in the frame.

2024-06-16 22:39:42

At home, Wien, Austria

The tat tat tat of toy machine gun drifts up from the otherwise empty street. It is warm, comfortable. When we got home from the holiday the tomato plants were stressed from thirst and had curled their leaves from prevent water loss. After visiting such radically different climates – the dry heat of Istria and the wet cold of Firuli – and after overhearing my sister swap farming anecdotes of a too wet, too cold spring-summer with our host in the agriturismo, I contemplate how local climate is is and the importance of grounding theories of weather knowledge in specific sites.

2024-02-29 18:41:05

Augarten, Austria

2024-07-19 12:35:34

Augarten, Austria

Blue sky, hot. The city is heating up again. Yet the park, usually busy on such days, is quiet. Presumably many residents are already on holiday. Summer holidays are taken seriously in Vienna. Its shops and restaurants can shut completely, sometimes for more than a month, only reopening in September. This ritual of city life and work grinding to a halt in high summer as people take in long holidays, is a side of Austrian culture that is, perhaps, less well know and more associated with our hotter neighbour, Italy. I hide the ground station's hardware under the shade of a plant, and limit my time in the sun by leaving as soon as the satellite pass is over. I am tried and a little nauseous today, but in the openness of the park these feelings are less.

2024-03-14 11:15:08

Augarten by the flowers, Wien, Austria

I did not press 'stop recording' before closing SDR++, and so corrupted the file.

2024-05-17 12:22:00

Augarten by the flowers, Wien, Austria

Dust, grey skies, low light. I am reading over lunch an article on Microsoft's Planetary Computer, shared with me by Sasha. I began reading it during my last hospital appointment, which felt appropriate as, in my experience, hospitals are sites dislocation, dissociation and disorientation (as well as the putting back together of bodies). The authors are arguing for "pluralising the planetary" and recognising its "radical incompleteness"; they are favouring "messy operation(s)" over smooth form (Richardson and Munster, 2023). I message Sasha extracts, so as to not forget them and share resonances. The first reads "a computational enclosure reimagined as liberation".

2024-03-07 10:59:59

Augarten by the trees, Wien, Austria

2024-01-26 19:06:51

Augarten, near the gun towers, Wien, Austria

Today, the bird song was louder than the beep-beep of the satellite. Gardeners in the park were clearing the dead leaves into piles. I heard that it's better to leave them to decompose and return their nutrients to the trees from which they fell – they don't kill the grass. The temperature is mild and there is no wind, but there is a heavy blanket of cloud. Although it is nearly midday, the cars have their headlights on. This evening I willl go to the 'Defend democracy' protest outside the Austria Parliment.

2024-05-21 13:12:14

Augarten, Vienna, Austria

Its humid, muggy, close or "schwül" as my German speking studio mate, DD, said before we tried to find a good translation. Weather words rarely seem to translate one-to-one. Or, perhaps this is true for all words, and the high situated, experiential nature of weather exposes the limits of translation. Perhaps then we should get better at learning each other words for weather? Extend our fluency in talking about the 'ever starnger weather' and decoding memories of past weather. Or, maybe we should not rely too heavily on words to communicate weather? After all, its so bodily. Here, it is getting 'muggier'. I am going home as I feel a heaache coming on.

2024-01-24 19:06:51

Augarten, Wiem, Austria

It almost feel warm today. In the afternoon, it rained but I was inside the studio so didn't notice until I saw the wet pavement. My body also feel springy-ier, the migraine and stiffness I've had since Saturday is receding.

2024-01-16 11:29:29

Augarten, Wien, Austria

A piercingly clear day. Fresh. Chilly! I was glad to feel the sun on my face.

2024-03-15 09:32:12

Augarten, Wien, Austria

This is the first weather note I write in almost a month. The pansies have been planted out in Augarten. I rested my bike on the stone of circular flowerbed and used a mobile phone and my v-dipole antenna to receive a long image. I took with me a cooked painted egg, which I dropped in the gravel when peeling and had to throw away. It is a clear, sunny day.

2024-03-18 10:30:30

Augarten, Wien, Austria

I enter the radio frequency incorrectly and only discover half way through the satellite pass. My bike is leant against a Yew bush. The park is full of children and adult carers, sat on benches in the sun. In my usual spot there was an older woman talking animately to herself, I decide not to risk interupting her. The temperature has dropped, but the sky remains clear. I will call Sasha to discuss this project.

2024-03-15 09:32:12

Augarten, Wien, Austria

This is the first weather note I write in almost a month. The pansies have been planted out in Augarten. I rested my bike on the stone of a circular flowerbed and used a mobile phone and my v-dipole antenna to receive a long image. I take with me a painted cooked egg, which I drop in the gravel when peeling and have to throw away. It is a clear, sunny day.

2024-03-20 18:26:26

Augarten, Wien, Austria

It's so peaceful in the park. The air is rich and still. Dusk has always been my favourite time of day. I need this moment of stillness after working on a project about the war in Gaza. I feel a familiar combination of profound gratitude and guilt. The sky is clear, it helps me.

2024-04-24 19:27:05

Augarten, Wien, Austria

Athens is enveloped in Saharan dust, but it remains so cold here! On Friday it is forecast to drop as low as 1C degrees. An Austrian friend told me that it has snowed nearer the Alps, harming the fruits trees, which had budded early and were already in full leaf. On an emotional level the cold and damp is making me want to curl up and stay away from more energetic tasks, such as work and exercise. I checked 'wind map' to improve understanding hoping that this would bring me comfort. The slick data visualisation shows cold air coming from the artic, passing Sasha in London, before arriving in Southern and Central Europe. Sasha are you cold?

2024-05-16 12:32:00

Augarten, Wien, Austria

It didn't record, which was such a shame as the satellite pass was long and a sweet 60 degrees to my West. The weather is here warm, gusty and cloudy. The weather app on my phone says that it'll be cloudy for the next two weeks – I hope not. After reading a news story on how people with freckles are at high risk of skin damage, I purchased a pocket-sized tube of sun cream. I am ready for the sun and now its gone. The Slovakian Prime Minister has survived the attack on his life. The latest reports suggest the gunman is in his 70s. It is likely that he grew up in the Soviet era Czechoslovakia and lived through the 'Gentle Revolution', possibly even the 1968 Prague Spring.

2024-05-29 11:35:05

Augarten, Wien, Austria

It is sunny. A few white and grey clouds move across an otherwise deep blue sky. A cool wind raises the hairs on my arms. As I receive the radio transmission, I imagine NOAA-18’s rapidly changing location. “Are you over Latvia or Lithuania? Perhaps now Belarus?” I ask. “What do you see?” The questions are not rhetorical nor do I expect a reply. I list the countries its invisible trajectory crosses: Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria. The satellite’s signal begins to stretch, its wavelength subtly lengthening as it moves away from me. “Have you crossed into Greece?” I ask. “Are you over the blackness of the Mediterranean Sea?” My line-of-sight with the NOAA-18 is unbroken as looks down on Cairo and Egypt, then, it its East, Gaza and Israel. Here, I loose its signal and my line-of-sight. Later, I look up the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, and re-read ‘Poetic Regulations’ “The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read. They taught me I had a language in heaven and another language on earth. Who am I? Who am I? I don’t want to answer yet. May a star fall into itself, and may a forest of chestnut trees rise in the night toward the Milky Way with me, and may it say: Remain here!”

2024-06-20 12:00:35

Augarten, Wien, Austria

It's a balmy temperature, just warmer than my body. The sky is hazy and there is a cool breeze. The weather is mild, but I feel enraged. At breakfast, I let rage well up inside of me as I read the New York Times newsletter's coverage of crisis of aid not reaching people inside Gaza. In my lay opinion, the article's conclusion is morally and legally bankrupt. I have worked on armed conflicts for the last seven years and yesterday, in preparation for a consultancy job, I read 'SOUTH AFRICA’S COMMENTS ON THE REPLY BY ISRAEL TO THE QUESTION POSED BY JUDGE NOLTE AT THE END OF THE ORAL HEARINGS HELD ON 17 AND 18 MAY 2024'. In short, denying civilians access to medical services and humanitarian aid is punitive and illegal. End of. I suspect different colours of my rage are interconnected, like clouds of a cyclonic weather system. For example, I have such bad cycling rage at the moment and it’s very misandrist. Everything time a male cyclist overtakes me at the traffic lights and then proceeds to cycle slower then me – a regular occurrence – I mentally flip-out and practice the cycling equivalent of tailgating. I should stop this and find a better outlet for this negative energy. Recently, I chased down a male cyclist who had, unprovoked, shouted at me. Sadly, he didn’t notice and it was me who turned into a one way street in the wrong direction. I could continue to list the things that have provoked rage in me, but there is little point as they are proxies for greater, less direct injustices.

2024-06-18 12:23:59

Augarten, Wien, Austria

It's heating up. I enjoy how the city radiates heat from all directions, loosening my muscles. I embrace the floppy feeling. Yet Vienna is not yet built for sustained summer heat. Its surfaces are mostly sealed, there is too little vegetation, and it does not cool-off enough at night. I am standing in the blazing midday with sun cream and sun glasses but no hat. I am still learning how to live in a country that is a little hotter, a little drier than the North of England where I grew up. A group of young school children pass, all wearing matching caps. I take note. Buy a cap. During the satellite pass I try turning on a feature of the software defined radio programme called Automatic Gain Control or AGC for short. Gain is a property of the antenna, which can be manipulated in the software … and this still confuses me. Usually, I use the programme's waterfall display to manually adjust the gain, however today, keen to improve my understanding of gain and the software, I experiment with turning the two AGC functions on and off, and then both on at the same time. The waterfall display turns from blue to yellow to red. To my ears, the signal to noise ratio sounds worse, however the resulting image looks surprisingly uniform. In my studio, M, shares with me a weather forecast from the ORF, Austria's national public broadcaster. She wants me to know that Saharan Dust is forecast for Friday.

2024-06-25 12:36:45

Augarten, Wien, Vienna

I thought that I'd overheat but cloud came between me and the sun. It's hot, but not too hot, and the heat is dry. I feel more at peace in my body today. I know that I need to listen to it and respect its limits while it heals. The city building's are no longer cooler inside than out. I am trying to be productive, get work done, but really I want to be lying flat on my bed or dipping in the cool waters of the Danube. How are you Sasha?

2024-04-14 22:23:46

Augarten, Wien, Austria

The wind has been squally, like my body. I woke tired. To reclaim my body, I swim one kilometre at the local pool. The full sensory experience of swimming focuses me on breath and rhythm, in ways other sport cannot. I feel my muscles and enjoy imagining the small exercised-induced testosterone boost. I feel back inside my body, home.

2024-05-13 23:01:31

Balcony, Wien, Austria

Sun, clouds, and a cool wind. Today is a day of body euphoria. This has become a monthly ritual and one I should get better at celebrating. I am back inside my body and its a wonderous feeling: I have energy and I feel (almost) clear headed. After a long day of work calls, I made it out of the house around 7:45 pm to buy food from the local supermarket before close. On my way home, the sun was low, hidden, except for explosions of gold at the end of every side street. I walked slowly and took in the soothing quality of the light.

2024-04-27 12:13:44

Sasha Engelmann

Beach of the River Thames near Trig Lane Stairs, London, United Kingdom

I arrived at the beach of the River Thames shortly after low tide. The curve of stony beach accessible from Trig Lane Stairs was criss crossed by mudlarkers who hardly noticed me as they bent to the ground and turned over pebbles and pieces of seashell. Arriving at the beach straight from a symposium at the Tate, my head was filled with dialogue about sirens, alarms and states of emergence / emergency. The radio spectrum had its own sirens. Around every two minutes or so, the relatively calm 'ocean' of spectrum in which I tuned my ground station was interrupted by what I can only describe as 'blasts' of energy that drowned out all other signals. The blasts would disappear, allowing a minute or two of calm, before returning. I tried to discern whether they coincided with the Uber Boats traveling up and down the Thames. A mudlarker passerby – who turned out to be an art history professor at a university in London – speculated on this wtih me for a few minutes. As I took a final few photos of my ground station the tide was already beginning to come back in.

2024-08-23 11:04:44

Sasha Engelmann

Belvedere Trabucco in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy

When I arrived at the Belvedere Trabucco - a wooden pier facing the lagoon north of Ligano Sabbiadoro - I discovered it was full of fishing poles. Some older men and a few teenagers were monitoring the poles and their long, taught fishing lines. One young person re-attached the lure on their line - it looked like a spider or dragonfly. Fixing my radio antenna to the edge of the wooden railing, I fished for signals. The sound of NOAA-19 emerged soon after, and gained in strength quickly, as there was almost nothing between me and the Northern horizon except the lagoon and a thin line of land in the distance. In the greenish water below I could see the characteristic clumps of material called 'mucilagine' in Italy. Though mucilagine has been known for hundreds of years and is caused by a non-toxic microalgae, Gonyaulax, it has increased in quantity with rising Adriatic sea temperatures and it poses a growing problem to small fishing boats and businesses. Apparently, some hotels along the Italian coastline are even sending 'mucilagine weather reports' to tourists and travellers who want updated, semi real-time information on the spread of mucilagine in seawater before arriving at the beach.

2023-12-27 22:05:20

Hazy, damp cold. First night in Bergamo.

2023-12-28 19:00:15

It is my second night in Bergamo at same location but with my v-dipole antenna instead of the turnstile. Yesterday I learned that that the radio environment was noisy, however I was still surprising to receive no image. During the day Nicola and I observed an opaque haze hugging the alluvial plains of Lombardy. At dusk, a narrow slip of sky, frame by the haze below and clouds above, glowed blood red. Having heard how the Alps trap air pollution from the small factories on the plain, the red glow felt menacing.

2024-04-30 22:25:17

Beside the Rathaus, Wien, Austria

As I receive the satellite transmission, I listen to pop music from a large concert for the SPÖ youth organisations. To get to the street corner we walk through groups of teens. In the shadows of the park they could have passed as much older, but occasional childish impulse to jostle, shout or run after one other gave them away. I read that each year the socialist youth organisation's march through the city with torches, this year their motto is 'Vienna against the Right' or „Wien gegen Rechts“.

2024-02-01 11:30:57

Beside the round flowerbed in Augarten, Wien, Austria

Wet! I have just come back inside from the satellite pass, dripping. I stood in Augarten park, in the intensifying rain, my laptop inside a small bin bag tent. From the warmth of my shared studio, I decoded the image. A huge white arc of water sweeps across my screen from North from Spain to Norway. Is this what it feels like to be at sea – to orientate by waves of water and light? Sometimes Sasha and I joke that open-weather is a queer, feminist space agency. Right now, I feel less like an astronaut and more like an aquanaut.

2024-01-12 19:22:06

Between Amsterdam and 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

The Netherlands

I am on the night train. The weather inside is controlled by a continuous cold draft from an overhead ventilation duct. I rigged my v-dipole antenna to the ladder for the beds, and tuned to NOAA-15 mid-pass. As the train sped between lit buildings, I could see the satellite dip in and out of reception. I finish the recording just before we reach the next station. I am thinking about how the current political climate renders some lives disposible, ungrievable. "An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it has never counted as a life at all", wrote Judith Butler. Is this fascism? Golrokh messaged from Tehran. There is so much weather between us. At 's-Hertogenbosch, a woman paediatrician boards the train. She is wearing a blue surgical mask and says that she’s got the flu (later, she corrects, she thinks that she has Covid). Our shared compartment feels tense as we exchange gases, aerosols, and possibly virus. She is going on a skiing holiday.

2024-06-27 09:35:31

Sasha Engelmann

Between Queens and Schilling Buildings, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

I awoke this morning not having slept because of the heat. T and I had left the bedroom and living room windows open but there was little breeze. In the middle of the night, the bedroom blinds started knocking against the window and I dreamed someone was trying to get in. Foxes screamed (or intensely rejoiced?) at 3am in the garden. In Waterloo station at 7:30am, an old, bearded, probably homeless man stood still with his eyes closed in the middle of the river of city commuters emerging from the tube and walking to the train platforms. I had to cross the current by hopping a few feet at a time through moving bodies in order to speak to him. He had an American accent but I shied away from asking about his origins. He didn't open his eyes when he spoke. By the time I bought him a coffee, he had got another one from someone else. We joked about the double coffee situation before I re-entered the commuter river. When I left he had opened his eyes, gazing straight ahead.

2024-05-21 10:58:24

Sasha Engelmann

Brunswick Square Gardens, London, United Kingdom

Brunswick Square Gardens was empty this morning except for a circle of exchange students trading stories about English habits of life, and a long-haired older man walking in circles, puffing on a joint and coughing vigorously. Despite the tall brick buildings around the square I was able to capture a relatively clear image of the UK and the middle of the continent. Yet I failed to recognise the impending rain that would baffle all predictions for the day's weather. Later in the afternoon, at a seminar where three of my PhD students were presenting their work while weather brewed above, ideas of the planetary were discussed in relation to sonic geographies. One of my students is building networks of 'live audio streams' as an investigative tool to listen to sites of extraction, and another is listening across great timespans and timelines through conservtion bioacoustics archives, through which scientists trace the changing compositions of species in landscapes, and observe how the memory of sound is intergenerational, held in the bodies of animals (even non vocal animals) in ways that far exceeds individual lifetimes. As I listened quietly, resisting the urge to speak as the rest of the research group asked probing questions, I reflected on the different modes of planetary 'stretching' and 'scaling' being enacted in their work, and the devices they were using, from DIY audio streamers to experimental notation systems. The climate crisis requires us to 'stretch' and 'scale' but sometimes our conceptual frameworks scale unevenly or in unexpected ways. By the time we had celebrated the seminar and had dinner, the brewing weather had arrived, and it was pouring (an event that had not been predicted on any platform I had checked which suggested 35 percent light rain). I cycled home for 40 minutes, at times coasting through rivers of water that came up to my standing knee. Of course I had also worn my nice white trousers. I felt thoroughly stuck in space-time, unable to stretch or extend, each peddle bringing me two metres closer to home.

2024-07-07 12:31:03

Sasha Engelmann

Buddle Inn, Niton Undercliff, Niton, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

Crawww crawwww the crows spoke as they lifted and tumbled off their roosts along the cliff edge and fell into the strong westerly wind as if it was a blanket, finding shape as a flock seconds later. T and I were several hours in to a hike along the coastal path of the Isle of Wight and the silvery sea was shadowed by elaborate fast moving clouds. The weather forecast had predicted rain and yet we were in the sun most of the day. Our shoes and hands were speckled with the chalk that is characteristic of the island, and our legs happily tired. We learned about the local footpaths and the 'right to roam' across farmland. We also learned about the nettle and bracken that tower several metres high at points along the coastal edge, and send spikes into our ears and our shoes. We learned about some of the locals, too. Earlier in the afternoon, as we paused along the edge of a road to discuss our route, an older man tending a garden asked where we were from and if we needed help. We said we were from London. He said 'no your not!' so we had to explain further. The previous day, in the toilets of a seaside cafe, a bride-to-be looked at T and cried out very loudly and mockingly - 'are you a BOY or a GIRL??!' T found it funny. I ran through angry retaliations in my head for several minutes, then let it go. Back at the cliff, we lay in the tall grass as the crows swirled around us and T did some deep listening. I told T that I felt like falling off the cliff, it felt so tempting to follow the crows.

2024-05-10 11:31:05

Sasha Engelmann

Burgess Park, London, United Kingdom

I have been thinking a lot about how atmosphere can gather like a force field around a person, an object, a space, a time. One of my favourite writers of atmosphere Kathleen Stewart, says: 'It was then that I began to think, along with others, that nameable clarities like family or friendship or love or collapse or laughing or telling stories or violence or place are all atmospherics. All forms of attending to what's happening, sensing out, accreting attachments and detachments, differences and indifferences, losses and proliferating possibilities' (2011: 448). This morning I cycled through the uncannily warm, dusty, petrol-infused air of London to Burgess Park, which used to be my local park and the place I captured many satellite images in the early days of open-weather. On the hill in the park I thought about its atmospherics, how my move to Hackney has changed my attachments and detachments to the park's hills, fields, communities and skyline. As if to interrupt my nostalgia, a couple men who had come to lie on the hill started speaking and then fighting. One started laughing at the other, clearly in a way to make him eveny more angry. I rushed to pack up my antenna and rolled down the hill on my bike, noticing that the other hilltop walkers had done the same.

2024-05-31 10:32:35

Sasha Engelmann

Burgess Park, London, United Kingdom

Today I am striking in solidarity with Palestine together with other UK-based practitioners and organisations. The strike is organised by Mosaic Rooms and Migrants in Culture, specifically calling for groups and individuals engaged in cultural work to withold labour today, May 31st. My academic work as a cultural geographer is part of the cultural milieu in the UK, as I publish open access articles related to artworks, artistic collaborations and networks. Though open-weather is a fragmentary, precariously funded cultural project, it does participate in the cultural sphere. In lieu of a long-winded 'weather note' or working on a new academic article, I am spending the day doing the following: - Building an open access resource library on Palestine Geographies - Emailing my union on moving forward a public statement on Palestine - Engaging with and applying resources on university action by University and College Workers for Palestine

2023-12-31 11:38:40

Very cold, a few snowflakes in the air. I failed to press record!

2024-01-01 11:15:10

There was heavy snowfall yesterday afternoon and overnight. This morning it is sunny and clear with no wind. I was able to take my winter coat off.

2024-01-10 08:48:00

Carnegieplein, Peace Palace, The Netherlands

The Netherlands

Lizzie and I stood outside the Peace Palace. Its public square was the closest the open space to our apartment. But we had also retuned out of curiosity to record the atmosphere before tomorrow’s court hearing. “The world will be watching The Hague,” several Dutch people had told me. On arrived, the square was empty except for people going to work or walking dogs. At the palace gates, security guards were using LED-lit mirrors to check the underbellies of vehicles. Perhaps this level of caution at the Court was normal? Lizzie and I assembled the antenna and tuned to the satellite's frequency. At first, a security man walked over and asked us to leave. We negotiated 10 more minutes. Annoyingly, we had not yet picked up a signal. I was about to begin troubleshooting when the a police car pulled-up. A police man asked for our IDs and took them into the patrol car, while his colleague stood, leaning on its open door. Still no satellite signal. Lizzie experimented with the position of the antenna, when she rotated it, I was sure that I briefly saw the telltale lines of the transmission. Cold, we gave-up, packed down, and waited for our IDs to be returned. Lizzie lamented having not pressing record: at least then we would have documented radio environment. As it was, we left twitchy from police check and without an image. From inside a nearby cafe, I tuned to the tension in my muscles and their alertness. Perhaps we hadn’t needed the radio antenna. Our bodies had picked up a tension in the air that I had failed to see.

2024-02-06 10:32:11

Children's play area in Diepoldpark, Wien, Austria

Blustery, blue and spring-like. The wind was so string this morning, it almost blew me off my bike.

2024-01-15 10:41:52

Sasha Engelmann

Clapton Pond, London, United Kingdom

Half of Clapton Pond was frozen on the surface, the other half (receiving the sun over the tops of buildings) was not. Pigeons stayed out of the shade, milling about the edge of the pond and periodically bursting into the sky. In the decoded satellite image, I noticed that the mainland UK appears sandwiched between two bodies of east-moving cloud, receiving its own intermittent winter sun.

2024-04-05 11:42:53

Sasha Engelmann

Clapton Pond, London, United Kingdom

I have been thinking all morning about the wind, so I was particularly attuned to the creaks and murmurs of the wind around our flat and street this morning. The wind in my thoughts, though, was different to the one chasing clouds across the sky of London in big gusts. Instead, I was tracing my family's memories of the 'Jugo', a wind that originates in the South over Africa, and blows over North Africa and the Mediterranean. Once it reaches the Balkans, the Jugo has picked up many particles and water droplets along the way. In my family's lore, shared across many in the Balkans and former 'Jugo-slavic' peoples, the Jugo brings certain feelings and emotions to the foreground. Yet unlike the Bora, a brisk, cold wind from the Northeast, very little has been written about the Jugo's cultural value, its meanings, and how it maps onto ideas of 'the south' in ways that need attention and critique.

2024-02-01 10:33:13

Sasha Engelmann

College Green, Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom

I met the Centre for Research Architecture students on the top of College Green at Goldsmiths University on a brilliantly sunny morning of the 1st of February. I introduced the DIY satellite ground station we would use to capture an image from NOAA-18, and immediately there were about a dozen questions. Melodie held the antenna first, tracking the satellite from the southern horizon to a maximum elevation of 43 degrees. Excited chatter was constant throughout, and laughter rang out as Melodie and later Penelope tried different poses and antenna orientations. The atmosphere was joyful and lively, but as the pass came to a close, the group was happy to return inside to warm up and look at the image in darker / calmer conditions.

2024-03-29 10:06:28

Sasha Engelmann

Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy

We awoke in Courmayeur, the famous Italian ski resort near Mont Blanc. The weather was a hot topic from our first conversation with the hotel manager at Stella Del Nord, who advised us that the most accurate weather info would not be in our smartphones but in the hands of the ski shop owners. The person we spoke to yesterday evening said definitively 'non e bello', but today the verdict is that the clouds are 'high' and snow won't fall. A strong wind that was rumoured to arrive yesterday, also didn't materialise. To our good fortune- we are headed to the slopes!

2023-12-22 09:25:50

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

There were flood risks in Southern California over the last few days as the region received storm cell bursts. I recorded my image during a clear break in the rain, though the air, ground, trees and sidewalks were still soggy. A woman was throwing a branch to her Australian Shepherd in the park while I was recording the image. The dog was kicking up so much mud its multicoloured fur was completely mud-coloured after a few minutes. As I returned inside after the satellite pass, another burst of rain began pounding the roof of my Mom's condo.

2023-12-23 09:12:47

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

Today the light is a pale yellow and the air shimmers with leftover water evaporating from puddles and storm drains in LA. The city smells more intensely, as if all the materials on concrete surfaces, roads and sprawling buildings have sublimated. Throughout the satellite pass, the roar of airplanes taking off from runways at nearby LAX was palpable, though the misty clouds meant none of the planes could be seen.

2023-12-24 10:46:10

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

The sun was very bright and the air so warm today, I ended up in a t-shirt while capturing the satellite pass. The park was lively as a soccer team started warming up and a group of walking womxn did laps on the sand trail. I was on a video call during the whole satellite pass, and this made me reflect on the ways the signal from my phone was relaying through a nearby cell tower and onward to the other side of the planet, while the NOAA satellite above me sent radio waves to the ground – I wondered, did the signals touch?

2023-12-25 10:36:26

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

There is a soft light today, like the air is filled with small reflecting particles, whether water droplets or dust.

2023-12-26 10:20:51

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

The humidity is unusually high today- around 88% The local park was very vibrant and active, with a young soccer team and a group of people throwing frisbees. On my way back home I noticed several policemen checking parked cars along Green Valley Circle. One group had what looked like a kit with a brush- I wondered if this was for fingerprints. Had the humidity of the air affected which fingerprints could be lifted off car doors, handles and windows?

2023-12-27 10:08:41

Sasha Engelmann

Culver City, California, USA

It is a sunny and bright morning. As many people are working today after a few days holiday break, the air is filled with sounds of vacuum cleaners, washer/dryers, leaf blowers and home DIY equipment.

2024-07-24 10:38:20

Danube Canal, Wien, Austria

The sun went in and out flooding the lush foliage in a dramatic yellow light. I had run out of time to reach the park, so carried my bike down a flight of steps to the bank of the Danube Canal. To my right two, trees that I did not recognise bore seeds and globe shaped fruit. The uncut grass next to the water's edge was flush with wild flowers. Up stream, almost under a road bridge, a woman wearing a hippy paisley print vest was collecting something from the bank, slowly filling two plastic shopping bags. I assembled the antenna unhurried with the knowledge that in my sunken position the satellite would take need to be almost overhead before I could receive it. It's transmission arrived earlier than I expected but my phone crashed, corrupting the file and forcing me to restart the recording. Once done, I sat on the bank, listening to the satellite's rhythmic presence and enjoying the cool winds and waters of the Danube.

2024-05-20 11:44:50

Diepoldpark, by the picnic benches, Vienna, Austria

Happy launch-day satellite NOAA-18! It's been 19 years since on this day in 2005 you were launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Your planned mission was only two years, yet you are still transmitting. Back on Earth, I have cast aside my mum's landline telephone, for a Motorola mobile, for a my first smart phone (a friend's hand-me-down), for an iPhone 13. Can you imagine? It's a pocket-sized radio transceiver that has more computing power than Apollo 11. Dear NOAA-18, radio technology has not only transformed how we make phone calls, it has become cheap and easy to combine with code. While you have been in orbit, software defined radio has become a truly low cost alternative to conventional radio – it is what makes this project, open-weather, possible. Perhaps you already know this since last year, the American government outsourced the management of your data to the longtime defence contractor, Parsons Corporation. Parsons enrolled you in trial cloud-based ground system that is running off Microsoft Azure. As I mentioned in a previous Weather Note, Microsoft has announced that it is building a 'Planetary Computer'. Given your involvement in the trial, it is probable that in your "extended life" you are helping to build this 'digital double' of Earth. Next year, in September, the contract awarded to Parsons to maintain you expires. September 2025 could be date of your mission, but we don't that as information is hard to find. (Parsons, 2022; NOAA, 2023; NCEI, 2023). If true, you have one more birthday to celebrate. Until next year NOAA-18!

2024-03-03 20:39:23

Diepoldpark, Wien, Austria

2024-03-25 22:09:44

Diepoldpark, Wien, Austria

It is still but cold. I receive the image in our local park, standing by the toilets. Earlier in the day, on the train platform in Brno, I see a man dressed like a cattle herder, in full leathers, carrying tall boots. At the vegetable market, I buy a woven fruit basket from aother burly man who shows me and N a photo of him dressed as Obelix the Gaul. Tomorrow is meant to be sunny.

2024-03-30 11:17:58

Diepoldpark, Wien, Austria

Why is it that I am so low energy? The sunlight that has made it through the dense semicircle-shaped cloud over Vienna is dim and omnidirectional. It's warm and humid. I woke early and could not fall back asleep. I had hoped to begin the day clear headed, ready to write. Yesterday, after uploading my satellite recording to this archive, I noticed a large plume of Saharan Dust over the Mediterranean. I wrote to Sasha who relied saying that she had not spotted the cloud in her imagery had observed a "light sprinkling" of a reddish dust on the snow. We share an interest in the ways satellite imagery is, “drawn to the dust, the particulate, which it has itself apparently become.” (Leslie, 2021: 102). I want to get better at reading particles, not just pixels.

2024-03-16 18:33:56

Diepoldplatz, Wien, Austria

Experimental copper tube v-dipole antenna.

2024-04-29 21:16:51

Diepoldplatz, Wien, Austria

2024-07-18 21:38:15

Diepoldplatz, Wien, Austria

A soupy night. Warm and still. Older men on park benches smoke and watched as I point my antenna. My phone crashes multiple times. I focus on the long beans handing from the tree in front of me. The last kids of the day shouted in the park, two whizz around on scooters with LED lights in their wheels. I try to ignore the men’s gaze and relax into the warmth of the night.

2024-06-12 20:04:12

Dordolla, Italy

A musician, Pietro, joins us for the satellite pass. The alpine village of Dordolla is so small, we just needed to walk around for word to get to Pietro that we were at the only bar. There is a light drizzle. N makes a beat to the sound of the satellite, tapping the puddle with his foot. Pietro makes a sound recording. He is a drummer. The air is thick with moisture. The energy of yesterday's electrical storm has dissipated, but the clouds have not broken yet.

2024-01-30 21:46:34

Dornerplatz, Wien, Austria

I worked from home so didn't leave my flat until the evening. Today was dry, clear and cold, but not too cold – you could take your gloves off without your fingers hurting. The stars were bright.

2024-04-02 09:10:37

Dornerplatz, Wien, Austria

It rained all night. Not "blood rain" coloured by Saharn Dust, normal rain. I sat on a bench in Dornerplatz and received the satellite image in the sun and wind. The sky is a true blue this morning. Seeing it made me realise how grey and brown it has been the last couple of days. It's amazing how quickly one can forget the colour of the sky, and then be shocked by its rediscovery. In The Memory Police by Japanese author Yōko Ogawa, a community living under a phantasmagorical authoritian leader slowly forget the existance of mundane things: hat, ribbon, bird, rose. These things disappear in the night. Once they are gone they no longer have meaning. In the community, forgetting is policed and takes three stages (1) the erasure of the thing (2) the erasure of the memory of the thing (3) the erasure of the memory of the memory of the thing. The news this morning is all about the war in Ukraine and the war in Palestine, and how Israel had killed Iranian Military Commanders in Syria. Iran has sworn to take punitive action against the United States. [Interval] Three people close to me messaged today to say that someone they knew had died. I have sent my condolences, even thought this never feels enough. Today, has grown into a day marked by learning of the passing of people who I will never know. I am writing this down as a minor act of recognition and remembrance.

2024-01-12 11:26:31

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

I tried to stay away from the weather today as my asthma had kept me up the previous night and I was worried about too much time in the cold. I leaned out my second story window to catch the segment of the satellite pass that managed to creep in between the Victorian buildings on my street.

2024-01-14 11:02:15

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

I stayed almost entirely inside during this satellite pass, in sweatpants, slippers and an oversized jumper I had found in a vintage store in Buenos Aires. Even before I stuck my arm outside the kitchen window to catch the last half of the satellite pass, the antenna was picking up NOAA-18 inside the flat. This made me wonder about the porousness of our flat to the 'weather' of radio. Nicola took a look at my satellite image, he pointed out a cluster of white pixels where Mt Etna should be: the volcano is snow covered!

2024-01-17 21:49:09

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

I had finally made it home after a fourteen hour day at work at the university and on many commuting trains. It's been so cold in the UK with a current of Arctic air reaching down across northern Europe this week, but it has also been very clear and bright- I could see the stars as I reached my antenna off the kitchen windowsill.

2024-01-19 11:32:55

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

I was in between two meetings on Microsoft Teams – one finishing and another one starting at 11:30. NOAA-18 was due to start its orbit over London at 11:31. I wondered – was there time for the weather? I tried to 'create time' by writing a 'I'm five minutes late' message to the person I was due to meet, and took my laptop to the bedroom to the nearest possible window to receive the satellite pass. As I was counting the minutes of the pass I was also counting how late I would be. I wished I could stay in the 'weather' of the bedroom and sunny back garden, and avoid the 'weather' of the Teams meeting room!

2024-01-21 11:08:40

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

Storm Isha has been sweeping across the UK this weekend, with amber weather warnings issued by the Met Office in many parts of Wales, Scotland and Western England. Though the conditions weren't that bad in London, I stayed in the back garden of our flat to keep sheltered from wind. A curious cat named Dylan came padding quietly up behind me to check out what I was doing.

2024-01-29 11:14:13

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

The weather of my body today is turbulent and choppy. Though I am usually able to remain calm on the surface, today is proving difficult. I am surprised when my bodily, emotional weather bursts out into the conversations I have with students and colleagues throughout the morning. I have begun to edit apology notes (probably unnecessary) to be sent later over text and email.

2024-02-02 10:28:19

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

London is gray and cold today, with a haze that feels like a soft blanket. On my way to buy bread this morning, the air made street corners, cars and shops look a little fuzzy. Being inside a bakery, and back in my flat with a warm loaf of bread and a coffee, was deeply comforting. It feels like good weather to be tidying up the house, changing sheets and watering plants.

2024-03-10 11:08:28

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

A light rain is forecast to fall all day today. It is coating the street, parked cars, trees, bricks and asphalt in a layer of water that is perpetually replenished from the sky. In weather like this, I wonder how the bugs and creatures of the soil are doing. As water logs the pores between grass roots and humus, do the smaller creatures begin to swim? do they breathe underwater?

2024-03-12 10:43:42

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

The darkness of yesterday has bloomed into spring rain today. Sitting by the open kitchen window, I could hear the pigeons cooing on the roof, perhaps making use of the partial cover of the chimney wall. Many people walked by on Downs Road, though their umbrellas and quick paces meant that they kept their eyes on the sidewalk, oblivious to a strange metal object being held out of a third floor window.

2024-03-22 11:59:02

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

A weather system tremulous and noisy between walls

2024-03-26 19:32:35

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

The sound of the satellite, low and noisy over the nighttime horizon, mixed with the sizzling of a frittata and the slicing of salad leaves.

2024-04-09 12:36:32

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

As a bulb of fennel sizzled in olive oil on the stove, I leaned outside the second floor window of our flat, angling my turnstile antenna at around seventy degrees to the West. It didn't feel that long ago that doing so would have made me shiver with cold, but today I reached out the window withoat a coat or gloves. The air helped to soothe a splitting headache I developed from staring too hard at my computer screen this morning. The pain also made my perceptions fuzzy – a slight 'shimmer' in my peripheral vision.

2024-05-06 10:42:23

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

The Met Office have issued a 'thunder warning' and a 'wet washout' to the end of the Bank Holiday weekend. One forecaster commented, 'if you manage to avoid showers, then it will be nice in the sun'. The contrast in these comments struck me as I held my antenna out of the flat window to catch the signal of NOAA-19. If sun... then very nice sun! If rain... then thunder and floods.

2024-05-28 12:24:53

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

My senses are dulled and my body aches in a dull, persistent way that reminds me eerily of Covid. For most of the day I struggle with clouded focus and a heaviness in all of my limbs. Two lateral flow tests come back negative. I get worked up in an online committee meeting and sweat through my shirt as I wait for my 'raised hand' to be summoned. Soph wonders if I am fighting a (non-Covid) virus, and I remember the way my colleague was coughing in the office when we met on Friday. Yet what I am feeling is nothing like a 'common' cold or flu. On the way to the local health food store, we happen upon a baby fox hiding among sand bags next to a construction site. Passing me, my partner, and the fox, a man says this particular fox had been 'dropped' into his back garden by fox-parents some weeks ago and the fox's family would bring food until the little one was strong enough to jump out. What had it done, I wonder, to deserve such gentle entrapment? It peers up to us, seeming both mildly frightened and defiant. At the health food store, 'East of Eden', I browse a wall of herbal remedies, powders and cures. They have names like 'organic dog blood', 'raw moon' and 'bread nut'. I am surprised not to read 'fox tail'. I don't know what to choose and I end up with dark chocolate and bananas. I wait for my body to give me more signs - a sore throat? a fever? The full-body ache is both everywhere and nowhere, showing no signs of sharpening or waning.

2024-07-14 23:32:15

Duboka, Croatia, Croatia

There are even more Mauve Singers in the bay, too many to swim without being vigilant. N and I collect white plastic rubbed smooth by the Mediterranean and bring it back up to the village in bags. Our host is distressed and moved to apologise by the sight of so much plastic. He is an older man possibly no longer unable to make the steep 25 minute hike down to the water. He mentions the heat and then "the Albanians". N is confused and thinks that Albanian tourists have been littering in the bay, as opposed to racialised ocean currents carrying the trash from the Albanian coastline. His misunderstanding lightens my mood.

2024-07-11 22:25:02

Duboka, Vis, Croatia

I am getting better at staying cool headed in the heat. Blue skies, a few clouds. A gentle wind brought some relief. Today was hotter than yesterday. Our host said that he installed the air conditioning unit the day we arrived. He complained many times about the heat. It was a reassuring to know, as a Northener, that I was not the only on struggling. Yet it was disconcerting to know that the heat was new. It has not always been this way. N and I waited until the relative cool of the night to receive a satellite pass. We walked down to a track leading away from the village. Using a head torch, I checked for snakes. To my relief, I found a grass hopper laying eggs and a stray cat. Towards the end of the pass, curious to know what other animals might be near, I looked around for more eyeshine. My survey revealed many small green dots. I approached, expecting to find small animals, perhaps lizards warming themselves on the stone? Instead, behind each green dot was a Radiated Wolf Spider. N and I were being watched by tens of spiders. I dislike spiders so quickly packed-up and retreated to the house, eyeing the green dots lining the track.

2024-07-10 11:46:31

Duboka, Vis, Croatia

Intense heat stops me thinking. I sweat into my teeshirt and instantly regret exposing myself to the unforgiving sun. "Tomorrow", I note to myself, "wait until nightfall".

2024-07-09 10:12:00

Duboka, Vis, Croatia

Woke surprised by hot the apartment already was. As I set up my antenna on the track leading into the village, an older man and woman came out of their house to offer me local produce. Sweating, declined in stilted English. Perhaps I sounded Spanish as the conversation turned into an exchange of "Mucho calor!"

2024-07-13 22:42:00

Duboka, Vis Island, Croatia

2024-05-30 12:03:48

Sasha Engelmann

East Park, Southampton, United Kingdom

Wind is the subject of a half-day symposium at John Hansard Gallery in Southampton where I am presenting on behalf of open-weather. I am looking forward to the constellation of academics, scholar-artists, and members of the public who are going to share new work and join the conversation. A scientist called Richard Cornes from the National Oceanography Centre talks about histories of weather observation gleaned from the diaries of French and English scientists who kept careful records of temperature and pressure. An artist named Abelardo Gil-Fournier who has just co-written a book with Jussi Parrika presents his sculptures and experiments in the cinematography of wind. Scholars Maximilian Hepach and Bergit Schneider examine the diaries of John Muir, the drawings of Da Vinci and the paintings of Van Gogh to 'read one elemental media ecology against another', for example reading air through a description of ice in Muir's semi-spiritual field notes. JR Carpenter and Jules Rawlinson perform a sonic, poetry and visual piece called An Island of Sound featuring fossils, nautical charts, wind roses, walruses and other characters. We all stay out late at a local pub chatting and catching up, and I am filled with the nourishment of ideas, new reading recommendations, academic gossip, the sharing of intellectual projects and agendas, and generally feeling like we are all participating in an intellectual project around air, weather and wind. As I am rarely in a room with so many fellow air and wind scholars there is something momentous about this, and I am reminded of the ways that scholars used to travel for days, over hundreds of miles on land, to attend conferences together, to feel like they were taking part in a common project. I am by no means naive to the eliteness and exclusivity of this history, but I remind myself that it is also OK for today to be about the joy of shared and generous participation in overlapping academic work.

2024-01-11 10:46:05

Eline Vere Park, Den Haag, The Netherlands

The Netherlands

"GLOBAL SOLIDARITY CALL WITH SOUTH AFRICA. JUSTICE FOR GAZA, MANIFESTATION AND LIVESTREAM OF COURT HEARING. Bring banners and signs with text: 'No genocide, No ethnic cleansing, Anywhere', 'Justice for the Palestinians', IsraelOnTrial for its #GazaGenocide'" @free.palestine.nl Today, I am unable to organise my experience of the weather into the coherent report. At lunch, I stood in the park behind the ICJ and watched a live stream of South Africa's lawyers argue that Israel is intended to commit genocide. Outside it is still below freezing. A street away, the students are build antennas: Ice-tennas, Tree branch-tennas, Finger-tennas.

2024-01-29 20:20:46

Entrance of Augarden, Wien, Austria

It's clear and cold again, when I left for work this morning the rooftops were frosted white. Frost always takes me back to childhood. When there was a heavy or hoarfrost, I would go out before school to slide down the field opposite our house on a tray. Sledging on frost felt more risky, edgy, than on snow – the frozen ground could easily inflict bruises. It was also a sport no one else seemed interested in, so I had the field to myself – bold and alone.

2024-04-01 19:19:06

Ferienhaus Post Sozial, Wien, Austria

A cold wind cuts through my flimsy Uniqlo jacket, making me shiver during the satellite pass. Only three hours earlier, I'd been sat on our balcony in shorts and a cut-off tee-shirt, reading Lucy Sabin and Jorge Olcina Cantos' article 'Weathering Saharan dust beyond the Spanish Mediterranean Basin: An interdisciplinary dialogue'. In it, they paraphrase Michael Marder writing that "to face dust is to face not the Other, but the self" (Marder, 2016: 6) Taken out of context, for me, there is something liberating in the idea that we can change state, transmutate, to the extent that we are unrecognisablle, even to ourselves. Back in inside the flat, a change in the soundscape of the street alerts to the rain. Perhaps a interin "cold drop" or the end of the dust weather. N and I take the opportunity to return to the balcony in raincoats and, under the cover of darkness, throw fists fulls of flower seeds into the empty lot next door. Last year, when the old building that had to occupied the lot was being torn down, angry, I had bought online two litres of wildflower seeds. Now we were completing the plan. The seeds rained down, hopefully accomopanied by nutrient rich Saharan Dust.

2024-07-08 12:50:43

Sasha Engelmann

Ferry from Ryde to Portsmouth, The Solent Channel, United Kingdom

We made the 12:45 ferry to Portsmouth with one minute to spare, and opted for the 'sun deck' despite the total absence of sunlight. The deck felt more inviting than the humid, dark interior of the boat with airplane-like seats and sullen-looking people. We ate cheese and pickle sandwiches that neither of us liked very much. A NOAA-19 pass began just three minutes after the boat's departure. Though the maximum elevation was only 18 degrees to the west, I decided to try anyway, having never received a satellite image while moving in water! It worked far better than anticipated- I curled the legs of the V dipole antenna tripod around the metal railing, and a few minutes later the signal was ringing-in clearly. I wondered how my trajectory on the boat was affecting the image reception, if at all. A young man who had also come up to the deck asked if he could take a photo of me with his analogue film camera. He had travelled to the Isle of Wight for the weekend to 'see the stars'. Yet he also admitted to being 'very out of it' and having had 'little sleep'. He lamented the rise of Starlink and the other ways we are 'ruining the planet', and didn't say much more. When we approached the port, the clearly audible signal of NOAA-19 cut out sharply for a few seconds, so much so that I briefly wondered whether the satellite had stopped transmitting or glitched for these seconds. My experience of noise is normally a little 'softer', more like a gradient than a cut.

2024-03-21 11:26:48

Flowerbed, Augarten, Wien, Austria

My phone says that it's 3C but it feels warm in the heat of the sun. I take off my coat and sit on the edge of the stone flowerbed, taking in the bulbs that have sprouted, listening to the satellite's signal, and offering a polite smile to the people who stare as they walk past. I mostly get blank looks, but one older man returns a scowl. It is not just the rise in temperature that makes it feel like spring is here, the air is scented.

2024-01-02 22:17:00

Fondamente Nove, Venice, Italy

Damp cold, overcast and dark. My second failed satellite pass! Nicola was helping but dropped one of my antenna poles onto the marble of Fondamente Nove, crushing the screw thread. I also for my USB adapter. I am very tired.

2024-01-03 20:34:37

Fondamente Nove, Venice, Italy

It is a beautifully still night on the Venice lagoon; overcast, but with good visibility. I captured the image from a floating pontoon on the Fondamente Nove. As the satellite passed overhead, the pontoon was rocked by passing Vaporetti. I made a sound recording of water and radio waves mixing with the and clinking metal of the pontoon and a man singing.

2024-05-09 11:44:18

Sasha Engelmann

Founder's Field, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

On my walk to the train station at 6:30am, the sun was already warming the park and highlighting its colours. I passed an orchid rockrose that looked eager to be seen, so I stopped and took its portrait. I learned later that rockrose flowers last one day. Later, at the university geography department where I work, I attended a seminar on 'plant humanities' in which someone suggested that plants 'scale time' in nonlinear ways. They hold hours, minutes, and seconds in recursive spirals, cycles and loops. This made me speculate about non-linear plant-weathers. In the orange rays slanting through windows on the train ride home, I wondered if the rockrose was finishing its rotation or defiantly resisting the dimming light, stretching time.

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