Contributions – open-weather

2024-09-07 12:51:46

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Hello lichen, who and when are you? This morning over breakfast I read a post by my friend Adriana Knouf about project Obxeno which is an automomous, solar-powered apparatus and camera watching lichens in a park around the clock. Though lichens are famously slow growers (some only grow around 1mm / year) one of Obxeno's timelapse videos seems to show a rapid grown of a lichen leaf or thallus, sort of blossoming out of the larger body. A curved piece of bark glowed bright yellow and green on the pavement on my way back from the farmers market. Later in Hackney Downs, I saw many smaller fragments of lichen in the grass, and I couldn't help borrowing two small pieces to put under the microscope at home. As I wandered through the labyrinths, caves, colours and depths of the lichens I brought home, I learned they were, like many lichens, collaborations between a green algae and a fungus. For the (at least) two lichens I was looking at, the lichen-forming fungi were Physciaceae and Teloschistaceae, both apparently relatively common and 'cosmopolitan' according to what I could find online. I read these samples in my living room were 'micro-lichen' and their shapes were foliose (leafy) and leprose (like a powder dusting). Lichens are believed to be some of the oldest organisms on earth (though how to define the limits of their identity as 'singular' organism challenges many of Science's principles). They can grow on almost any surface and they can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains! The collaboration between the algae and the fungi is beneficial because the algae produce carbohydrates via photosynthesis that are used by the fungi, and the fungi provides a protective environment while also gathering moisture and nutrients. When fungi form partnerships with cyanobacteria in certain species of lichen, the cyanobacteria can even fix Nitrogen from the air. I learned that lichens were sent to the vaccum of space by the European Space Agency and exposed for fifteen days to the vacuum, with its widely fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation. After 15 days, the lichens were brought back to earth and were found to be unchanged in their ability to photosynthesize. If a lichen can live without water, and even without air; if it is never only 'one' but 'more than one'; if a lichen may be ancient or renewed each day, then perhaps, from the perspective of a lichen, energy, space and time are things that can be bent, molded, malleable. People like Adriana have said this to me before, but I am finally understanding lichens as both space and time-travellers...

2024-09-07 10:11:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

V and I, adamant that it was the last day of summer, caught the train in the opposite direction from home to Hallstattsee. The lake was blissful. Its steep sides and deep waters have kept it cool, even after the hottest of summers. This we learned this from an older couple and their two dogs, who joined us on the narrow pebble beach. I took my first dip since the operation. The cold water held me, drawing me down. Despite my caution and an unfamiliar tugging in my abdomen, I dipped under again and again. The feeling was one of release. I extended my body, unfolding and stretching it in ways that I have not since the beginning of August. The lake’s water was cloudy and its stoney bottom, quickly dropped away. With my film camera, I photographed V floating in a starfish position, her peach colour swim suit beautifully offset by the dark greens of the lake and mountain side. In that moment, I think that we both felt a supreme confidence and peace in our bodies.

2024-09-06 19:19:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

It is one month since the operation and being engulfed by the 'closest weather' of my body. Last night I dreamt that I was standing in a brackish pool near the coast, bare foot with a fine mud between my toes. N and S are nearby. The coastline could be West Scotland. N asks if I’ve stood in the pool before. I know that I have, but for reasons I cannot explain, I lie and say that I haven't. Stripy leaches appear from the mud and attach their mouths to my feet. In horror, I freeze, unable to move for fear of stirring up more leaches. N reaches over and helps me jump out of the pool. I wake distressed and go to the next room where N is sleeping. I fall asleep again, only to dream that I am at a surreal hospital check-up.

2024-09-06 10:29:48

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

For the second day, the weather is damp, grey and dark, with intermittent rain. The park was wet and puddled, but plenty of people were out walking, having coffee and running with dogs. I breifly cuddled with Moonpie as Dave arrived at the park: 'you're one of the only people he runs up to like that, and also lets pet him' Dave said. By the time that sentence was finished, Moonpie was off again, racing to the other corner of the park. I collected some specimens - a leaf of clover, common yarrow and a tiny bump of moss found on the damp brick of the wall outside the house - to explore with the microscope. The 'weather worlds' of these small plants came alive under the lens - the moss danced with long whitish filaments that I learned could be sporophytes, and its stems and leaves bristled below. The yarrow was difficult to bring into focus because of its three dimensionality, but slowly the tips of leaves came into view, and I saw that it was covered in micro droplets. The stem of the clover almost shimmered, and I wondered if this was water coursing within the tissue, or just a quality of the surface.

2024-09-05 19:31:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Despite the daytime heat, the nights are cooler. Only the mosquitoes continue to be a pest. There must have been a mass hatching event as there are so many, espcially in the studio. I think that I am now able to tell part the larger black and white striped ‘common’ mosquito from the smaller brown ‘tiger’ mosquito. With some encouragement, the last of my five scabs 'fell' came off. I pulled at the plastic surgical threads still protruding my my belly button but they wouldn’t budge and later my tummy ached. Once all the wounds are seal, I can swim again. These days, I can mostly move without pain but I am still cautious about twisting or turning too suddenly. I wonder if the doctor will find adhesions when I have my check-up in two weeks. The thin red scars look small on the surface but feel bulbous beneath the skin. In the evening, S from the hospital, WhatsApp'ed me to say that her endometriosis had already returned. The news is disturbing. She already has a new cyst! So, soon? “No one could have known,” she writes.

2024-09-05 19:09:26

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

'Cabbage clubroot'; 'bee leg with pollen sack'; 'cucurbita ts stem' (cucumber stem); 'dryopteris filix-mas' (male fern); T and I pored over dozens of microscope slides rescued from an old science building due to close or be refurbished at Goldsmiths University. T had even rescued a microscope - the older kind with no light for illumination, and only a mirror - that otherwise would have been tossed. Too engrossed to cook dinner, we ordered pizza and kept speculating about the worlds made visible through tiny pieces of glass and magnifying lenses. Based on my undergraduate training in plant biology I thought I could identify the cambium in a slide containing a sliver of wood, but I wasn't sure. In the midst of this I went outside for an early evening NOAA-15 pass and wondered again about scale, patterns, fractals.

2024-09-04 23:28:08

Toronto, Canada

2024-09-04 19:40:52

Toronto (High Park),

lots of mosquitoes out this evening

2024-09-04 12:03:01

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-09-04 11:07:28

Toronto (High Park), Canada

I'm having a harder time these days tracking the satellites as they pass overhead. With one small movement I can lose a good signal. But I try to stay positive as I redirect the antenna to find the signal again.

2024-09-04 10:55:07

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

"We need to understand weather to understand where and how toxic air is held closer to peoples' lungs" - this is a statement that I wrote years ago as part of a grant application. Today I wondered: how much do I understand about the inter-implicancies of weather and air pollution, at least in the region where I live? I deep-dived into the Copernicus Programme's Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the freely available air quality forecast plots available at the link below. Out of the four plots I studied most closely - for Dust, PM10, NO2 and Ammonia - I was most surprised by the Ammonia plot, which shows the vast majority of continental Europe covered in what looks like a toxic orange cloud. Ammonia is less publicised as an air pollutant in the media- we more often hear about 'Saharan Dust' or 'Nitrogen dioxide' or 'Ozone'. Yet I learned that ammonia leaks from agricultural practices, livestock waste, and the use of synthetic fertilisers. Moreover it combines in the atmosphere with sulphates and nitrates to form secondary fine particulate matter (PM2.5) which can enter the bloodstream of breathing bodies due to its very small size. Ammonia and PM2.5 are clearly too small or fine to 'show up' in satellite images like those of NOAA-19, but I learned that newly launched satellites, like NASA's PACE satellite, are intended to fill in the gap in knowledge around what aerosols actually do in the atmosphere. For example, according to climate scientist and modeller Gavin Schmidt we don't yet understand how a change in regulatory policy affecting ship fuel (mandating a move away from sulfur-based fuels toward 'cleaner' options) might have had on the climate in 2023. Sulfur can combine with other molecules in the atmosphere to reflect light and change the density of clouds, therefore possibly having a cooling effect, so moving away from such fuel sources is speculated to have had warming effects. The implications of such vast changes in fuel use for the types of aerosols in the atmosphere are immense, and yet it is hard to scale up from particulate to cloud or weather. I studied the satellite image I captured today and wondered about whether dust, perhaps, was blurring the borders of land and sea... Source: https://tinyurl.com/4xcpkaxx

2024-09-03 20:50:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Sunny, but not too hot. A manageable heat to get work done in.

2024-09-03 11:19:32

Toronto, Canada

It's one of those September days where the air is cool in the shade and hot in the sun. After a few days of struggling to get good signal, it was encouraging when I heard those very clear ticks and beeps. I did this capture in my backyard with just a short view of the sky.

2024-09-03 11:08:44

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

"Muffin man!" "Moonpie!" I heard in the distance as a black ball of fur careened into the side of my body and I was greeted by the happy face of a small pomeranian mix who promptly sat down against my leg. The wobble of my radio antenna probably registered in the satellite image I was capturing but the company was more than worth it! Muffin Man followed Moonpie, as well as another dog called Star, and I was soon surrounded by small joyful dog energy. I learned that Star was being fostered after having been rescued from perilous conditions, and would soon be given to a family for care and a home. Our conversation attracted another dog owner who came over to get information on a recent incident where an off-collar dog attacked another dog in the park. For some minutes, rumours circulated about who the attacking dog belonged to and what had happened, with speculation that the owner might even have been sent to prison. The moral of the encounter seemed to be that dogs are capable of anything, no matter how cute and lovable they are- yet no matter how hard I looked at Moonpie, I just couldn't imagine him being scary. In the swirl of activity, dog-cuddling and conversation, the satellite passed overhead and crested the southern horizon, and I packed without so much attention to the semi-clouded sky.

2024-09-02 21:03:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

There are so many mosquitos in the studio! They bite you even when you are wearing buy spray.

2024-09-02 12:15:45

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

A fine drizzle was carpeting the neighbourhood as I went out with my tape measure Yagi antenna today. I wasn't expecting the rain, so I found a still densely foliated Plane tree to give cover. Later in the day, en route to South London, the rain had started again. I had checked and rechecked the weather report before getting on my bike, and all that was predicted was a lot of cloud. I remembered what my scientist colleague said earlier this summer about the increasing moisture to be expected in a climate-changed Northern Europe based on a wobbling jet stream. Despite the moisture-laden air, the rest of the day was textured with immense relief, new knowledge, and support from my partner T. Two cats offered their emotional energies too.

2024-08-31 19:39:13

Toronto (Sunnybrook Park), Canada

2024-08-29 19:17:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-29 10:37:08

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-08-29 10:31:59

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Today I am presenting in a panel on 'Open Geographies' at the Royal Geographical Society annual conference. I plan to speak briefly about the 'openness' in open-weather. For me, in addition to 'un black-boxing technology' or 'visceralising data' (d'Ignazio and Klein, 2020), the openness in open-weather may be about different dimensions of the ‘commons’. The late queer theorist Lauren Berlant describes a world that is, “intimately touching from near and far and therefore changing what proximity does” (Berlant, 2022: 99). I want to suggest that ‘the common of contact’ between a ground station operator and a satellite is both ‘intimate’ and ‘changing what proximity does’. Figuring this ‘common of contact’ leads to alternative and perhaps more thoroughly open readings of environment-sensing infrastructures and commons. It demonstrates how the effort of holding an antenna to the sky is built on a form of sociality and even desire, manifested in the collecting and caring-for of images otherwise considered faulty. Yet, lest I create a romantic picture of desiring bodies and machines - there is ample boredom, frustration and ambivalence too. Through repeated, modest, noisy contact with the technologies of earth observation, open-weather helps me envision a progressive politics of openness, one built on, in the words of Berlant, “affective infrastructures that admit the work of desire and the work of ambivalence as tactics of communing” (Berlant, 2022: 116).

2024-08-29 09:13:02

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-08-28 19:30:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-28 10:53:24

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-08-28 10:46:50

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Today the air is still - not so much as a small gust as I orient my Yagi antenna from north to south, tracking NOAA-19. The sky is veiled with light cloud and contrails, and things feel grounded, heavy but not placid. Indeed I feel so unusually calm that I don't leave the house until the satellite pass is actually starting, meaning I am six minutes late to press 'record'. A man is driving around the park with a large tank of water on the back of a truck, watering trees. This feels like such a benevolent and kind thing to do, though I am sure water must be rationed as the trees are turning yellow-brown far too early. As he drives by me, he smiles and gives me a thumbs up from the car window.

2024-08-27 19:46:18

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-08-27 19:42:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-27 11:52:02

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Another windy day, with gusts coming from both the south and west across Hackney Downs. Tree branches and pieces of bark have been peeled off trees and lie on the pavement or grass. Once again my tape measure Yagi was pushed and pulled around by the air, and once again I feared the delicate bits of soldering would come undone. When the dipoles bent down at odd angles, lines of noise permeated the audio recording. I realised today that I had never fully explored the fact that antennas could be malleable- able to move and bend with the wind. We associate antennas with very tall steel towers or elaborate metal sculptures that are nevertheless solid and static- but what about an antenna made of flexible material? I've been aware of 'wearable antennas' via the work of artists like Afroditi Psarra or Audrey Briot, and I have seen experiments in metal weaving, but my tape measure Yagi has raised other questions about working with semi-flexible, yet conductive materials that change rather than holding shape when exposed to air.

2024-08-26 20:50:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-26 20:10:27

Toronto (High Park), Canada

2024-08-26 12:02:33

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

On my way back from the park with my tape measure Yagi, I saw the well-known local character who wears a tracksuit and stands on benches practicing martial arts, every day rain or shine. I smiled and waved hello, and he immediately exclaimed 'there's the aerial!' and for a moment, I think, mis-gendered me, as he called out something like 'oh- a girl!'. He jumped down from his bench and started asking questions- had he seen me before in the park? was I from America? how do I like Hackney? I learned his name is 'Joe' but everyone calls him 'Shaolin Joe' because he practices the Shaolin Arts (martial arts) in public around Hackney and Clapton. I tried to explain why I use my Yagi antenna to capture images from satellites, and he compared my daily satellite passes to the Shaolin Arts... 'meditating with your satellites'. We shook hands and he called out after me 'Have a great day!!' and something like 'good American!'

2024-08-25 18:56:29

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

I awoke to a flood of sunlight in the apartment, though the colder air temperatures persisted. My head and body ached and I wondered about residual tiredness or a travel bug. This was all counter-balanced by a morning of indoor plant gardening: trimming the willow tree in the corner of the living room, crafting support structures for newly grown arms of vines near the ceiling, and watering others. When I finally emerged from me and T's apartment to catch an early evening pass in the park, the wind caused the dipoles of my tape measure Yagi to bend and angle all over the place. I tried to find positions where the antenna would slice through the air rather than be buffeted like a kite, but often gusts came from unexpected directions. It was not stormy, but unusually unpleasant, especially with the recent memory of sun-drenched beaches and warmer air.

2024-08-25 12:22:03

Toronto (High Park), Canada

The Canadian National Exhibition is on this weekend, an end of summer festival with rides, music, and an international air show including the Royal Air Forces Red Arrows, Canadian Forces Snowbirds and the United States Air Forces F-22 Raptor. I think some of the planes were practicing as I was capturing this pass, buzzing through the sky, flying low and close to the ground. Otherwise, a very typical summer day in Toronto, pretty warm, humid and little cloud coverage.

2024-08-25 08:37:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-24 19:20:36

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

From the heat, humidity and air pollution alerts of northern Italy, T and I travelled back to the UK by airplane in the mid-morning. The previous evening, a thick red and orange layer of particles coated the horizon. It was particularly visible during a long, late afternoon swim to the buoy that marks the limit of the swimming zone at the beach of Lignano Sabbiadoro. Normally, while swimming one can see the coastline of the lagoon and even as far as Trieste, but the haze completely occluded our vision. I read that the air pollution alert would increase in urgency over the rest of the weekend, and wondered whether my asthmatic lungs would react, or whether we were leaving too early on Saturday for my lungs to register. The airplane journey was cloud-free until we reached the agricultural flatlands of Germany, when a few cotton ball clouds appeared. By the time we were crossing the English channel, there were at least three layers of cloud: a thin, staccato layer above the airplane; an intermediary, patchy layer below; and a thicker, grey, monotonous layer close to the ground. We descended through the middle layer but spent another thirty minutes circling above and within the lower layer before landing. As we emerged from the plane, passengers cried out at the cold drizzle and wrapped their bare, tanned shoulders in scarves and other random clothing items - taken by surprise. The rain came and went for the rest of the day. I chose a lucky rain-break to head out to Hackney Downs with my yagi antenna for an evening pass. I noticed yellowed grass; large clumps of maturing chestnuts; and the late-August sunset piercing through the trees to the west, making silhouettes of people gathered around a bench with a sound system. I thought about Soph and urged Soph's cells and molecules to keep binding, smoothing, healing.

2024-08-24 12:35:33

Toronto (Sunnybrook Park), Canada

2024-08-24 08:49:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-23 12:47:53

Toronto (High Park), Canada

I was rushing to finish a paragraph of my dissertation so I could hop on my bike and get to my usual spot on time for the pass. I'm starting to get familiar with the speed in which the satellites move through the sky. Now when I'm pointing the antenna at the sky I hear no static, just clear ticks and beeps. The same curious stranger was at the park today - and wished me luck on my capture!

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.

2024-08-23 09:58:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-22 17:29:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station Wien

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-22 13:01:47

Toronto (High Park), Canada

It's starting to warm up again after a few chilly days in Toronto. I biked to my usual spot in High Park and had a few extra minutes after setting up to read. As I was packing up, a stranger came up to me to ask what I was doing - this happens every time. They are fascinated after I explain the process and I've started sharing the website with everyone who is curious about it.

2024-08-21 22:03:26

Toronto (High Park), Canada

Went for an evening capture today. I was different and super fun! The park was very quiet, and only lit with street lamps. The air was chilly and the sky was clear, I could see some stars and the moon was huge.

2024-08-21 12:28:55

Sasha Engelmann

Quercia delle Checche near Pienza, Italy

The quercia delle Checche, an approximately 300 year old oak tree and Italy’s first ‘green monument’, is full of dense, perfectly shaped leaves and is apparently thriving despite the dry summer. Planted in the 18th century, the oak was one of the few to survive the rapid landscape changes of the Tuscan countryside as the oak woodland was deforested in favour of agriculture. Rumour has it that Napoleon’s troops stopped to rest in its shade. Numerous local weddings, trysts, rituals and gatherings have occurred under and around its branches. Two large horizontal branches have fallen and now lie like giant bones in the yellow grass. Up close, the dry wood of the branches has whorls and shapes that remind me of Kármán vortex streets caused by wind flowing around islands or mountains. I wonder what events caused the wood to ‘flow’ in this way- what memories does it hold?

2024-08-20 19:28:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-19 20:38:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-19 11:01:31

Toronto (High Park), Canada

temperatures dropped today, the air was mild but the wind was super chilly.

2024-08-18 21:56:16

Lacknergasse, Wien, Austria

There was a big electrical storm this evening. Bolts of lightening flashed between clouds for hours. As I have spent most of my time indoors over the last two weeks, so to witness this weather event, even from the window, was exhilarating. My recovery from the surgery has been uneven and absolutely nonlinear. I have moments of pure joy, such as when I woke from a nap feeling completely rested, my mind loose but still. But by the afternoon, I missed physical exercise and social contact. I know that I need to ride out this turbulence. Or rather ride with it. NOTE: I received the satellite image after the storm had passed and the stars were out.

2024-08-18 20:50:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-18 12:11:43

Toronto (High Park) , Canada

sunny, hot, humid. second capture of the day!

2024-08-18 12:11:43

Toronto (High Park) , Canada

sunny, hot, humid. second capture of the day!

2024-08-18 11:14:47

Toronto (High Park), Canada

It was a really sticky and humid morning in Toronto. My partner (Rory) and I cycled to High Park to capture two back to back satellites. I suspect I am getting disoriented halfway through my captures so we marked north and south with a tape measure so I could follow it without having to check my phone's compass. Fuelled on just coffee this morning, we enjoyed the sunshine in between satellite passes.

2024-08-17 23:02:39

Sasha Engelmann

Jadrolinja Ferry in the Adriatic Sea between Split and Ancona, Croatia

The almost-full moon hung ponderously over the southern horizon of the Adriatic as we made our way slowly across it in an overnight ferry from Split to Ancona (Italy). T and I had hustled on with our car and luggage around 21:30 and by 23:00 we were in the open sea. Languages swum between Croatian, Italian and French as we qued for dinner and wandered around. People had hung hammocks up between stairwells and railings. Others had blown up mattresses on the landings between stairwells, and others were just lying on a thin layer of blanket, exposed to the wind and weather of the sea. As I set up for a 23:01 satellite pass, the air was so humid and sticky- touching the metal railing of the ferry felt like touching liquorice. The darkness of the sea at night felt ominous and limitless.

2024-08-17 18:24:32

Sasha Engelmann

Jadrolinja Ferry between Stari Grad and Split, Croatia

The inside deck of the Jadrolinja ferry from Stari Grad to Split was far too crowded, so me and T sat on the floor of the upper deck. The air rushed around us, but the humidity stuck to our hair and skin. We said goodbye to Hvar for the summer. I said goodbye to my Baba.

2024-08-17 12:26:02

Toronto (Don Valley Brick Works Park Lookout), Canada

Went to a lookout today, the same spot I saw the eclipse a few months ago. Thought I could get a clearer image, I'm starting to think I am getting a bit disoriented with my directions, I'll have to think of some solutions. Big grey clouds were rolling as I was setting up, and an hour after the satellite passed, there was a thunder and lightning storm!

2024-08-17 10:39:33

Sasha Engelmann

Zaraće, village of Gdinj, island Hvar, Croatia

A thin veil hung over the bay this morning, making the sunlight a little bit weaker and more silvery. Me and T had slept in after a hot and sweaty night during which both of us sat up awake at 3am. I squeezed between the bunk beds and tiptoed outside with my radio antenna before any coffee was brewed. As I suspected, leaving out the extension cable meant that I could receive the pass easily and clearly from the rooftop terrace. I hooked the antenna tripod on the edge of a plastic beach chair and held the android phone on my lap, watching the patterns of the mid-morning current in the bay. By the time I was done, I could see the grills starting to smoke to the left and across the water, preparation for a fish lunch.

2024-08-17 06:35:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-16 18:53:42

Sasha Engelmann

The rocks of Zaraće, village of Gdinj, island Hvar, Croatia

A school of tiny black fish swirled around the rocks, and island swallows swooped and dived for insects above. I sat on a rocky perch at the edge of the sea, under the fisherman’s chapel, where someone had left a bouquet of olive branches, Tradescantia pallida, yellow cow parsley and long grass. A fisherman walked past me on the rocks and I suspected I had taken his usual spot, but he didn’t ask me to move, and he climbed on further, somewhat awkwardly navigating the steep Karst with its jagged edges and slant into the sea. I meditated on the deep time histories of Hvar - how my memories of Zaraće were so bound up with every edge of these rocks, and how far back in time they had emerged from the ocean floor, pushed up by tectonic and geomorphic processes. As I faintly recorded NOAA-15 at only thirty degrees to the east, the tide was coming in, and by the time I packed up, the sea was waking up the limpets and sleeping snails where my feet had been.

2024-08-16 12:36:12

Toronto (Earlscourt Park), Canada

I biked up a few blocks from my home, up a steep hill to a park I had never been to before. Lot's of kids playing, and runners around the park. Grey skies, very humid!

2024-08-16 08:48:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-15 19:56:25

Toronto (Sunnyside beach) , Canada

I biked to the edge of Toronto, on Lake Ontario this evening. I am trying different city parks to see where might be the best place to capture. It's been fun to cycle around the city to scope out potential sites. The Toronto beaches aren't very accessible, I have to cross a large highway on a very narrow bridge. But the sunset over the bridge on my way back home was really beautiful. Clear skies for my on-the-lake capture, very humid, and I got a lot of questions from folks on their evening stroll.

2024-08-15 12:48:52

Toronto (Sorauren Park), Canada

2024-08-14 21:07:30

Marcin Jasiukowicz

2024-08-14 17:35:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-14 10:11:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-13 06:38:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-12 21:29:05

Sasha Engelmann

Zaraće, village of Gdinj, island Hvar, Croatia

As I set up my ground station on the edge of the concrete terrace at my Mom’s house in Zaraće (a small bay in the village of Gdinj, island Hvar, Croatia) I could feel the concrete emanating heat accumulated over the day. The prior evening a small group of us (friends and family) had ventured out to the warm rocks at night to watch for the Perseids - and we saw several meteors, sometimes so numerous they seemed to speak to each other in the sky. One very powerful meteor passed from 90 degrees above us in a long orange streak to the horizon. Gdinj (and Zaraće) is an origin point for my family - one that stretches back for generations on my mother’s side, through the Čurin family who settled in Gdinj, grew lavendar, cultivated olive trees for oil, and fished in the sea. I remember my Deda (grandfather) waking up at dawn to collect the fish of the day from nets that had been laid out by hand the evening before. It wasn't so long ago that the only way to travel from Gdinj, on the top of the island, to Zaraće at the sea, was by mule or donkey along a narrow dirt path. It wasn't so long ago (only last summer) that I came to Gdinj for my Baba Albina's funeral, an event that drew the whole village, and with people driving from as far away as Belgrade. In the local cemetary, mom and I each read a small passage, and my Mom also read a poem by Vesna Parun. It is always intense for me to be (back) here. I want to forget about the practicalities of life - how to get clean water (the water 'cisterns' aren't always the safest to drink from), how to get food, who to go for ‘kavu’ (coffee) with. I want to just lie without a towel or goggles or rock-shoes on the pale, jagged, karst rocks and stare at the sea. Indeed I have spent so many of my summers doing exactly this, I wonder if my small bones are laced with limestone, seawater, algae, olive, lavender.

2024-08-12 19:27:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-11 19:39:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-10 20:50:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Satellite not known.

2024-08-09 21:03:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Today, I came home from the hospital. The weather was fair and I wore a tee white printed shirt and black slacks, loose at the waist. Satellite not known.

2024-08-08 23:17:13

Sasha Engelmann

Lignano Sabbiadoro , Italy

Acqua! ventisei. Sabbia! trentasette. (Water! twenty six. Sand! thirty seven). A voice called out the temperature of sea and land on a loudspeaker at the beach of Lignano Sabbiadoro on the Italian coast. I placed my towel on the sand next to a lifeguard station and felt the heat. People were running from their umbrellas to the sea (sometimes carrying small children) as the sand burned underfoot. I debated trying a satellite pass, decided not to in this unlikely location, and finally thought I’d try. Something about being in a swimsuit with the ground station immediately felt weird! My radio antenna got the attention of many, even at a distance - I caught several men with beer-bellies and leathery skin staring at me. Sadly I didn’t catch any signal - I had a big view of the sky, and checked and re-checked my settings, but it was difficult to see the tiny numbers in the android radio software in the sunlight. I decided to try again later, and I ended up catching a pass late at night from the balcony of T’s mom’s apartment. The shadowy form of the boot of Italy appeared in the infrared channel, lighter than the water (and therefore cooler). This puzzled me until I realised that land loses heat faster than water; the sea ‘holds’ it.

2024-08-06 19:00:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

There was no satellite recording today because N was still troubleshooting the prototype ground station, so a bending of time, this recording is from tomorrow, the day of my operation. As I write this, I am waiting for the 'big day'. It’s raining, I can hear but not see the water cascade onto the hard facade the 1970s hospital building as the long curtains in my room are closed. Possibly for privacy or, I speculate, because the my roommate left for the operating theatre this morning when it was still dark. Either way the yellow glow of the artificial lights makes me groggy before anyone has even laid a finger on my body. A nurse searches for the word in English, “I will tie the bandage tight so as to stop a …. hema-toma." "Your vein opened too wide," she explains. "God", I say, "that sounds bad!" She reassures me, then sticks a cannula above my wrist where there seems too little flesh between skin and bone to cushion its intrusion. It stings. I watch my blood back flow into the two plastic tiny tubes. “I think that I’m going to throw up,” I say as a nurse announces lunch. I am given a cardboard bowl to throw up in and a tray with a clear soup, asparagus, rice, lettuce leaves, and a yogurt. I skip the yogurt and throwing up, and decide that I need sunlight. Opening the long curtains brings into view a drab but solid looking Altbau opposite. The rest of the day passes with time suspended between boredom, anxiety and grief, the sources of which I guess but chose not to give shape to with words. Satellite not known.

2024-08-04 20:20:00

Toronto (High Park), Canada

The weather in Toronto was beautiful today, the air was a bit humid and there was no cloud coverage. The satellite passed exactly as the sun was setting, and the sky was turning pink and orange. This was my first capture in Toronto, so the image came out a bit noisy, but I as thrilled to see that I had captured the Great Lakes and Hudson's Bay! My goal is to capture The Canadian Arctic which begins at the North end of Hudson's Bay. This time of year, the sea ice has melted and we can see an ice free Hudson's Bay!

2024-08-03 22:39:31

Lacknergasse, Wien, Austria

Still, mild, mottled clouds. Clear air. By contrast, there is so much to write about the turbulent, changeable weather of last week. And, yet, I know that I cannot because some weathers are ineffable, and there have been so many, in too few days. Together, Sasha, we altered each. My hormones were so low (by chance) and I was grieving how my body will be changed by the operation next week. You tried to lower the waves of adrenaline and cortisol with empathy, touch and grounding words. It worked, to a point. We were what M Murphy, co-director of the Environmental Data Justice Lab at Tornoto University, calls "endocrine participating" (Murphy 2024). Yet the estrogen and progesterone in my body refused to join in, staying so low that my sleep was disturbed and recall foggy. You felt so steady and strong, but I know that you too were tired and running on empty. Our boundaries felt dangerously porous. Yet, in clear breach of feminist protocol, we worked. We worked on this project: carefully dismantling and debugging 3D-printed prototypes, testing digital interfaces, and making logistical plans for when and how to send hardware to far away locations. We also swam and drank too many Weißer Spritzers. You tried to order a doppelter Espresso but instead made-up the word "dooblé". We laughed, mixing caffeine with dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. We laughed too when, during a beautifully intense dance performance, we saw ourselves in the two dancers' energetic, full-bodied exchange. On the way back from lunch, I quite literally fell over your feet, bloodied my knees, and sat wordlessly gulping for air on the pavement. The activities list I drew-up before your arrival is now just over half crossed-out. Hungry to share, you and I pushed each other, as always. Next time, I hope for fairer weather between us.

2024-08-02 22:55:42

Sasha Engelmann

Kottbusser damm, Berlin , Germany

Berlin, Friday night, August. I peeked off the ledge of my friend Omid's fourth floor apartment on the Kottbusser damm, and set up my ground station looking East. The traffic 'rush' sounds below mingled with laughs, drunken conversation and sometimes yells or screams. I noticed how the antenna reacted to the side of the building, the almost-midnight radio environment, and to being hand-held - it preferred the balcony ledge. I had travelled all day by train from Vienna after an intense week of work with Soph, a week in which we ate market-fresh pickles, swam in the Danube, worked like crazy on open-weather, and sat together with pangs of uncertainty about the future, both immediate and further afield. From my midnight perch, I sent Soph a hug and some calm energies through the body-temperature air.

2024-08-01 12:24:05

Steve Engelmann

Geneva, New York, United States

Cloudy with spots of sunlight breaking through. Potential for thunderstorms later in the day. Pleasant view across Seneca Lake.

2024-07-30 08:46:30

Steve Engelmann

Geneva, New York, United States

From the docks of William and Hobart Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York the weather was humid, but pleasant, from the shores of Seneca Lake. Powerful thunderstorms were developing for later in the day.

2024-07-26 19:58:20

Marlene Wagner and Soph Dyer

Seestadt, Wien, Austria

Warm wind, residual heat. U-Bahn, aeroplanes, kids on the beach, gravel under our feet. Long shadows where the city meets the landscape.

2024-07-26 10:48:57

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

After another colder, misty and rainy day yesterday, and intermittent dark and gloomy clouds this week, it is a relief once again to feel some sun. The air is relatively calm, and a high altitude cirrus or haze makes the light a bit silvery. The ground is still moist in places, though elsewhere the grass has dried and turned a light beige. As I walked down the steps of my and T's house, a man on a bike, whose name I later learned is Duane, did a double take, then stopped and said he had seen me many times in Hackney Downs, and wanted to know about my Yagi antenna. We chatted briefly and, though he had to go toward Clapton, he said the next time he saw me in the Downs, he would come over and see what I was doing. We shook hands twice before parting. As I was leaving the Downs after the pass about twenty minutes later, an older man called out to me. He said he lived close to Hackney Downs and had seen me many times with the antenna, and now wanted an explanation. I showed the satellite image I had just live-decoded and he mentioned his own work as an artist. As his hands were trembling, he asked me to type in the open-weather website to the Notes on his phone.

2024-07-25 22:53:01

Lacknergasse, Wien

Cool temperature. Still night. There is a thin film of cloud. Earlier, inn the hospital, I read a draft of Wind’s Animacies by Sasha. The article sweeps me up, taking me far from the fluorescent lighting and airless weather of the waiting room. I turn over her question, "what does the wind remember?" I am moved by it, perhaps because I am grappling with how to reorganise or cohere a messy medical history of ill health with the new knowledge that comes with a diagnosis. I find myself caught between wanting to forget the lost days in bed with a pillow tucked under my abdomen, or the sleepless nights and listless days that followed. Could an earlier diagnosis have changed the course of my access to treatment? This is is both too painful and utterly pointless to think about. I want to reorganise my memories into a tidy narrative of endometriosis, cysts and fibroids, rather than the current cluster of unexplained, possibly unrelated symptoms that moved around my body to the extent that I stopped trusting myself as reliable narrator. I am thinking with Sasha's words: is pain is similar to wind? Neither are immaterial or material. Is pain not energetic, “slippery”, “leaky”? Thinking about wind’s memory is an analytic move away from asking “where does the wind come from?” (n.d. Engelmmann) A question that forces an artificial cut into time to arrive at a single origin point. I exercise changing the familiar questions “Where does the pain originate?” or “When did the pain begin?" to “What does my body remember?” This new question requires me to relearn to trust it my body and its complaints. To piece it back together. In a wholly different context, that of the 2016 US presidential election, American essayist and anarchist Rebecca Solnit writes “when the subject is grim, I think of the act of naming as diagnosis.” Diagnosis does not equal a cure, but it is an act of recognition that has the potential to reorganise and make sense of memories.

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.

2024-07-23 12:28:13

Sasha Engelmann

Tide Square, North Greenwich , United Kingdom

We woke up to dark skies again, but the air remained warm, humid. On my way to Southwark Bridge for a morning appointment it began to drizzle-rain and city-workers clutched their goose-bumped arms. Hours later I unfurled my antenna on the 'Tide River Walk' in North Greenwich, and almost immediately began to hear and receive an air traffic control downlink on a frequency overlapping with that of NOAA-18. A young man agreed to take some photos, and then went back to leaning on the railing, meditating on the water. Charli XCX's 'Brat' bounces through my headphones for most of the afternoon as I ride the overground and express mail some open-weather kit to Berlin. "When you're in the party b-b-bumpin' that beat / 666 with a princess streak..."

2024-07-22 19:33:19

Park bench, Lackerngasse, Wien, Austria

What I thought was the beeping of a heart monitor was actually the beeps of a pedestrian crossing. I feel hollowed out. Heavy and exhausted, I sit on the street corner bench. I began the satellite pass stood next to the empty plot beside our house but moved because there was so much radio noise. It has become a mysterious fact that, since the block of flats that stood there was demolished last summer, the void has been filled with radio waves. I imagine live electrical cables buried under the compressed rubbled. Electric snakes hidden under shattered brick. This image has stopped me from venturing behind the flimsy construction site fence to pick wild flowers. A woman walking to beautifully glossy dogs stops to ask if I am listening for bats. For a moment, I wish that I was engaged in a short-range, in-situ sensing that could connect me more directly to the nature that surrounds me. Before the building was demolished there was a large bat population. No, I say, weather satellites. Man-made, metal birds, a thousand kilometres away. One of the three sisters in my building passes and asks what I am doing. I offer a less than satisfactory explanation as I have decided to rush to the nearby supermarket before it closes to buy a 'sports drink' in an attempt to replenish the electrolytes in my body.

2024-07-22 11:37:21

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It is very windy today - the kind of surprising wind that gusts and blows in corridors. It was a struggle with my Yagi antenna, as it catches the air so easily, and at several points almost took me sideways with it. The tape measure joints swung at odd angles from the wood stick. An older woman and a small, white, curly haired dog were meandering nearby and I waved to say hi. We ended up speaking for most of the satellite pass. After considering my antenna for a few minutes she said: "the satisfaction... it gives satisfaction" and then "it's contact". I completely agreed.

2024-07-21 18:59:29

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

I wake up having had a nightmare, but it is really a memory of a real event that was playing out in my dreams. In the memory, I am seeing one of my PhD students get publicly attacked by a senior professor (who is also someone I respect and in some ways depend on). I run through all the ways I could have acted differently in that moment. I visualise myself standing up in front of the room and hitting back. It plays and plays, until I manage to have breakfast. By lunchtime, though, I am lost in the flow of an article I'm trying to finish before holiday. As a visual contribution to the article, after lunch I experiment with making a satellite image (one that features a current of 'Saharan Dust' moving northward over the Mediterranean) into a 'thaumatrope': an analog, double sided, spinning device that creates an optical 'illusion' of blurred borders, animated shadows, and miscible surfaces. It feels good playing with a satellite image not on a digital screen (as I overwhelmingly do in open-weather) and rather in tactile, DIY form, using a tool that is reminiscent of children's games. For me, the thaumatrope creates a kind of optical 'irritation' of moving forms, nebulous shapes and shadows, and disappearing or fading-out land and sea edges. It also seems to 'agitate' the cartographic orientation devices that we use when we see the coastline of North Africa and the 'boot' of Italy. Writing of images of the monsoon, Harshavardhan Bhat writes, "Satellite images empowered by spectroradiometer science and international coalitions begin to not just inform the science of the state but the imaginary that the monsoon unifies the entity called South Asia as part of a planetary system... This is a gift to political theory as the monsoon then becomes this technology through which the planetary infrastructure of surveillance and governance slowly unfold, silencing the complex work of the air of the monsoon" (2022: 240). Does the thaumatrope help to destabilise the 'unified entity' of the Scirocco or Jugo wind that brings 'Saharan Dust' to Europe? Does seeing a satellite image flicker and blur between channels demonstrate something about the 'slippages' of materials and elements in satellite imagery, inviting us to see beyond the 'optical ontology of pixels'? In contrast to a regional 'event', can we recognise something about the 'complex work of the air'?

2024-07-20 21:11:38

Postsportverein, Wien, Austria

A welcome overcast day with light rain. Inexplicably, I heard air traffic control on the same frequency as the satellite NOAA-19. I was sitting on the concrete bleachers of the local sports ground, beneath a GSM mast for mobile (cellular) phones, but I cannot think think that could have had an effect. The transmission seemed too strong to be a harmonic. Decreasing the bandwidth to exclude the noise worked well. I feel lethargic.

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.

2024-07-19 11:37:22

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It was too hot to be in the sun so I perched on the edge of a pool of shade made by a plane tree. A man in a track suit who is a kind of local figure in the neighbourhood - often seen balancing on post boxes, tall gates and bus benches doing dance moves that resemble Tai Chi, always in a full track suit - walked by, waved and said 'So I expect you're listening to the Gods??' 'Yes sort of!' I replied, hoping he would understand I was joking. 'Nice one!' he replied, and then followed with "I like your glasses!!!'. 'Thanks!' I said, and remembered how I had gotten my sunglasses at the 'Accessorize' shop in Kings Cross station while waiting for a train a few summers ago. Another man in a neat vest, jeans and glasses approached me a few minutes later and quietly asked what I was tracking. After I replied, he exclaimed 'And I thought I had an interesting job!!' 'What's your job?' I asked. He said 'Oh I park cars... BMWs... train driver too'. He went on his way.

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.

2024-07-18 11:51:41

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

I've spent all day writing, and my thoughts are swirling around ideas of memory, wind, history, and the way wind makes 'traces' and 'marks' in satellite imagery. The article I'm editing feels to have its own weather too, one of 'rabid gales', blue vanishings, wind-blown dust, 'pigments and mist' and vast differentials in temperature and pressure, pulling air into all sorts of space and corners.

2024-07-17 21:51:08

Lacknergasse, Wien, Austria

Mottled cloud mellowed the sun and a breeze prevented the air from feeling too close. On the balcony it is dark, grasshoppers sing. The tomatoes are recovering from a lack of water while N and I were on holiday. The crop is about on third ripe. Despite the stress of returning to medical admin and heavy weather between me and N, it’s been a good first day back at work. Sasha and I spoke for more than three hours. The feeling of pressure on my chest is easing. I will make the most of the cool night and sleep early.

2024-07-17 10:58:28

Sasha Engelmann

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

In the field that has been turned in to a parking lot for university graduation services, I link up my v-dipole, dongle and android. A maintenance man or security guard sitting in a blue van looks on with a bemused expression, but mostly he ignores me and talks on the phone. The air is warm for the first time in weeks and it is such a relief from the cold, rainy, at times torrential rain we have had in the U.K. Later in the afternoon I show my satellite image to SB, a physical geographer who specialises in studying past climates through tephra (volcanic ash). He points to the wavy line of the increasingly wobbly jet stream and explains how, with the poles warming faster than the equator, the difference in temperature and pressure that stabilises weather and holds the jet stream north is decreasing, causing the jet stream to curve and bend south more and more, bringing moisture laden air from the Atlantic to Northern Europe - this describes our recent weather experiences. Now that I’ve seen the curve of the jet stream with SB’s help I want to look back to all of the past imagery and try to spot it. Meanwhile, he says, ‘anywhere below 40 degrees (latitude) is burning’. Soph is just back from holiday and describes a level of heat in Croatia over the last week that was at the limit of their physical health. It doesn’t take much for heat to stress London- on my tube journey home, the air is so stifling that people are visibly haggard, some using makeshift fans and others flushed read and eyes closed, waiting for their train.

2024-07-16 12:15:09

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It poured last night, the kind of rain that quickly overwhelmed London's drainage system and caused pond-sized puddles on street corners and walkways. Somewhat fittingly, T and I were drenched in it while cycling home from a 'psychoanalysis and climate disaster' seminar at a pub in Finsbury Park. The conversation had been circuitous, and the speaker, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, had shared her research about the shift toward spiritual activism and intentional communities in Portugal testing different forms of spirit-informed collectivity. She kept saying that this research, or the research materials themselves, were 'embarrassing'. This was raised in the discussion- what is the root of our embarrassment when we talk about somatic practices or dance forms that give us more awareness of each other, or spiritual practices that give us room for wonder? Someone raised a theory from a source I can't remember that the earth has created beings with fully self-conscious brains - capacities to be embarrassed - in order to self-destruct on a planetary level. No reference was made to the many forms of human awareness and community that have not self-destructed, that are still trying to prevent destruction. I felt uncomfortable raising this point in the midst of so many unfamiliar, intimidating people, and because who am I, a white academic, to be the one to say 'aren't we forgetting indigenous lifeways and laws' when we theorise self-conscious self-destruction? I was reflecting on this during my satellite pass today. In the middle of it, two tall men in black t-shirts and knee-length shorts walked across the field staring at me so I smiled and waved. They came over and started asking questions. I was sitting on the grass holding my antenna upright and listening to the sound of the satellite on my Android phone. They approached very near but stayed standing, so I had to look vertically upward to see their faces. Their tall, looming shapes were outlined against the bright, cloudy sky. As I explained the tape measure Yagi and the passing satellite, one said, 'So are you an artist?' I keep wondering what sparks this question, as I have received it repeatedly over the last six months. Is it the fact that I use the word 'DIY'? Is it that I don't look like the type of person who is doing research or science?

2024-07-15 22:12:09

Perković Railway Station, Croatia

"I wonder if climate change can be measured in hot tracks?" you reply in response to my photo. N and I are waiting with perhaps a hundred other passengers at a small railway station outside Split. The reason, we are told by a cheery Austrian train guard, is that the railway tracks are too hot for the train to proceed. We must wait for them to cool. It is more of a novelty than an inconvenience to be stranded in the warm night with strangers. Assured by the guard that the train will not leave anytime soon, I made a dash to a local store to buy extra water and two ice creams. The small shop is filled with fellow passengers. The atmosphere is convivial if a little restless as we wait for the shop attendant to finish slicing ham for a local customer. I return feeling victorious, carrying the ice creams, the train has not left and will not leave another two hours.

2024-07-15 12:25:50

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Low-hanging, medium-grey cloud with a light drizzle that grew into light rain as I knelt on the grass. The sound of a car-sized grass mower in the distance. Damp ground. Despite the un-summerlike conditions, the park was full of primary school children running races and exercising. As soon as one group saw me and came over to ask what I was doing, I became a magnet for others. One girl asked if I was 'traveling the world... with that thing [pointing to the antenna]?' I said in some ways, I was, but also, I was just listening to the world. Another small girl simply picked up my antenna and raised it to the sky, winking slyly at her friends, while the accompanying adult said 'you should ask first!'. But I appreciated their forwardness. As they huddled around, I showed them the growing satellite image and pointed to different countries so they could try identifying them. The answer was 'I don't know... ' until it turned out they did know. Among the parents or chaperones, several asked further questions and wanted to know how to follow the project. I had to hurry to pack up in between two waves of visitors to avoid disappointing anyone.

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.

2024-07-14 12:40:13

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

In 1989, Derek Jarman wrote of a day in July: "Lazy high summer. The drowsy bees fall over each other in the scarlet poppies, which shed their petals by noon. Meadow browns and gatekeepers flutter wearily across the shell-pink brambles disputing the nectar with a fast bright tortoiseshell. The bees clamber hungrily up the sour green woodsage. Drifts of mauve rosebay and deep yellow ragwort studded with orange and black burnt caterpillars" (Jarman, 1991: 107). This morning I read an article in the Guardian about the rate and long-term advancement of mass insect death. Based on research on the number of insects killed on the number plates of cars, the study says we have 90% fewer insects in the UK today than we did 100 years ago. During the satellite pass at midday, I note how the recently cut grass of the park has given way to a low layer of clover and dandelions, and how bees fly between the clover, only a couple centimetres above the grass, sometimes bumping into each other and weaving between the higher leaves of grass. Other than the random lazy fly, I don't see any other pollinators. Butterfly populations are especially affected this year, apparently, in part due to the very wet spring-summer that has washed out many of their homes. Derek was already aware of the changing climate in 1989, as he sometimes mentions the warming air and the 'hole in the ozone layer'. I wonder if he knew about mass insect death, though from his descriptions of the cottage garden in Dungeness, he was seemingly at home with a kaleidoscope of insect companions.

2024-07-13 22:42:00

Duboka, Vis Island, Croatia

2024-07-13 12:52:06

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Grey, clouded, though lighter than yesterday. I noticed a thin, middle-aged man sat on a bench was watching me with my Yagi antenna. When I set my antenna down at the end of the pass, he walked over. He started with 'Just checking... you were tracking UFOs with that thing?'. I smiled and waved my hand in a 'sort of' gesture. As he turned to walk away I said 'I'm happy to show you what I've got?' and he veered back and sat on the grass near my laptop. We looked at the satellite image together. I pointed at the outlines of France, Spain and North Africa. He exclaimed 'Oh yeah, you're into weather!!' and he added 'I'm into weather too, always have been!'. 'How come?' I asked. He replied 'You can spell Rain, Cloud and Sun with my name... also Oak, Acorn... all the elements!' 'What's your name?' I asked. He replied 'Frances S ...' and a last name that I don't recall that begins with a 'K'. 'All the elements, then!' we laughed. He said 'Well keep lookin out for those UFOs' and I replied 'If I listen to any, I'll let you know!' And off he went, walking fast, south into the park. As I packed up I heard him yell to a man on a bike 'EH!! you have a GOOD DAY!!' As I walked home I thought about which elements I could spell with my name. By counting my middle name (Hildegard) I came up with 'shade', 'shine' 'hail' and 'snail'...

2024-07-12 10:20:14

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs Funfair, London, United Kingdom

Low-pressing grey again. A feeling of melancholy. I'm missing Soph's presence on zoom calls and text channels. I go searching for the funfair in the northwest corner of the park. It has not yet been activated, but I can see people walking around inside, checking and testing things. I capture a satellite image with my Yagi antenna and Android phone, kneeling in the yellow grass. After the pass, I circle the perimeter of the fair, and notice that there is a line of trailer vans and mobile homes on the far side, facing the overground train tracks. Laundry is flung on the metal fence that divides the funfair from the park, or on small drying racks set up outside semi-ajar car doors. I hear a man speaking at an elevated volume on the phone. He says something like 'I thought I had 2 points! where are my points!' I realise, then, that the funfair is an entirely mobile operation: all the big machines are transported on two very large, glossy red trucks, but the real 'infrastructure' are the staff who likely follow in their vans and mobile homes. I wonder how many places they go. As I walk back to Downs Road I pass a couple walking their greyhound. As I pass I can hear the woman say to her partner 'Oh yes that's the lady with the...'

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