Contributions – open-weather

2024-10-01 10:09:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

2024-10-02 06:44:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

2024-10-03 12:30:08

Sasha Engelmann

Finsbury Square, London, United Kingdom

It is a relatively warm and mild day in London, and people pour out into the streets at lunchtime as I set up for the satellite pass. Yet I am thinking about the wind and it's relationship, provocation (?) or resonance with memory. Writing from the depths of February in Dungeness, Derek Jarman is listening to the wind, observing: "Fragments of memory eddy past and are lost in the dark". The wind is blowing "high in the tower blocks and steeples, down along the river, invading houses and mansions..." He continues: "But the wind does not stop for my thoughts. It whips across the flooded gravel pits drumming up waves on their waters that glint hard and metallic in the night, over the shingle, rustling the dead gorse and skeletal bugloss, running in rivulets through the parched grass - while I sit here in the dark holding a candle that throws my divided shadow across the room and gathers my thoughts to the flame like moths. I have not moved for many hours. Years, a lifetime, eddy past: one, two, three: into the early hours, the clock chimes. The wind is singing now".

2024-10-03 17:41:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

New automatic ground station test location. Today is cold! Or perhaps I am just feeling the cold as I type this because I have to keep a small window open to run the ground station cable indoors. Brrr.

2024-10-03 20:28:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

2024-10-04 08:44:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

The temperature is hovering around 11 centigrade. Not quite the "baltic" but still bone chilling. It's wet and soggy. Yesterday, I learned the German word for "drizzle" is "Nieselregen". Today, Nieselregen has turned into "it's chucking it down" or depending on your mindset, "lovely weather for ducks!" My favourite word for especially grey wet weather is the Scottish, "dreich". To my ears, it sounds perfectly bleak.

2024-10-04 20:18:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

The satellite image collected by Automatic Ground Station 10 is framed with the noise and obstructions of a London street at night, a full story of building behind and four story buildings across the street. Yet in the window of signal there is a glimmer of movement, a curve and swirl of cloud that, in the infrared channel, speaks of something moving far away. I am still in awe of the fact that this is possible with an antenna held out of a window.

2024-10-05 12:01:49

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Today is October 5th, and a national protest for Palestine solidarity in London is underway, slowly moving from Russell Square to Downing Street. Many posters and banners point to the fact that the genocide in Palestine has been going on for one year. There are photographs of victims, messages to Netanyahu and Kier Starmer, and demands for reckoning. Chilling, however, are attempts in the wider media to memorialise this moment in ways that justify Israel's ongoing agression Gaza and Lebanon. Naomi Klein writes in the Guardian today: "What is the line between... memorialization and weaponization? What does it mean to perform collective grief when the collective is not universal, but rather tightly bound by ethnicity? And what does it mean to do so while Israel actively produces more grief on an unfathomable scale, detonating entire apartment blocks in Beirut, inventing new methods of remote-controlled maiming, and sending more than a million Lebanese people fleeing for their lives, even as its pummeling of Gaza continues unabated?" In light of this, the protest feels like more than a public demonstration- it is also a collective remembering, a coherence of what we remember.

2024-10-05 18:34:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

Today's night-time capture from Automatic Ground Station 10, currently in testing phase in London, looks like the 'ectoplasm' of 19th century clairvoyants, a current of veiled matter flowing over the continent.

2024-10-05 20:49:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Giant Riesenbovist mushrooms, colourful Kurbis (pumpkins), and sweet Sturm made from fermenting grape must are the seasonal highlights this weekend's market. Sturm (also spelled Storm) is made from grapes picked in Austria and is named after its swirling, cloudy appearance. As well as the autumn storms that typically signal its arrival. This year Storm Boris flooded the Danube valley before the grape harvest was complete. Sturm is so volatile that bottles of it are sold without lids, so as to allow the gases to escape, and its alcohol content can vary from one to around ten percent. A fellow shopper asks the stall holder in earnest if there will be more Sturm next weekend. He responds it is likely, but stops short of offering a guarantee. By next weekend will the Sturm already be wine?

2024-10-06 06:40:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

“How cold do you think it is outside?” I ask N as I hesitate between a light woollen or puffer jacket. “Now maybe it'll get cold. Until recently, with the sun it was okay,” he replies. I choose the black puffer jacket and we make a walk around the neighbourhood, appreciating the changing colours of dusk. We wander into a large Gemeindebau and weave through its ascending courtyards until, unexpectedly, exiting onto a familiar street. After three days of rain the sky is clear and air crisp. TD and GD left for Berlin this morning. Their spirits were not dampened by the wet weather. GD left an tunnel made of pillows, chairs and towels in our living room. Except for the walk, N and I spent the day in our pyjamas enjoying the afterglow of a weekend spent with friends.

2024-10-06 11:02:38

Sasha Engelmann

London Bridge, London, United Kingdom

On London Bridge, loosely knit groups of people wander by. I notice two families in which the Dad is pointing across the Thames to skyscrapers and offering some words of information or wisdom to his children. They don’t look interested. It’s the kids instead who are interested in me, asking ‘but what is she doing ??’ in voices that implore an answer. A tall man passes very close to my left shoulder and says in passing ‘watch out with that thing’ even though I am standing well to the edge of the bridge and there is tons of empty space to walk. The pass is a bit staticy at times but I have come to expect this from most of London’s bridges - too much happening by land, river and air.

2024-10-07 07:57:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

In Enemy of the Sun, Samih al-Qasim writes: I may – if you wish – lose my livelihood / I may sell my shirt and bed. / I may work as a stone cutter, / A street sweeper, a porter. / I may clean your stores / Or rummage your garbage for food. / I may lie down hungry, / O enemy of the sun, / But / I shall not compromise / And to the last pulse in my veins / I shall resist. | You may take the last strip of my land, / Feed my youth to prison cells. / You may plunder my heritage. / You may burn my books , my poems / Or feed my flesh to the dogs. / You may spread a web of terror / On the roofs of my village, / O enemy of the sun, / But / I shall not compromise / And to the last pulse in my veins / I shall resist. Samih Al-Qasim, “Enemy of the sun,” in Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Palestinian Resistance , Edited by Naseer Aruri and Edmund Ghareeb (Washington, DC and Dar es Salaam: Drum and Spear Press, 1970).

2024-10-07 19:36:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

On my way to work, I see a posy of flowers and candles arranged around a group of 'stumbling stones' (Stolpersteine) for Jewish Holocaust victims. The care and thought contained in the small act of memorialising such unfathomable violence moves me. Yet, I also feel disquiet at the possible mnemonic "fusing" of the October 7 attacks with the Holocaust. In a Guardian article, 'How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war', Naomi Klein asks what are the dangers (and motivations) of making such parallels? Klein's arguments have resonances beyond Gaza to other contexts where work is being done to remember the violence and victims of war. Sasha, I am thinking of your 'pilot' research into your family's Balkan ancestry, knowledge of wind and other more-than-meteorological weathers. I am thinking too about how half a decade ago I tried and mostly failed to write about the flawed efforts of Western NGOs to record and so mark the deaths and injuries of civilians in the wake of US-led aerial bombing campaign against the so-called 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria. The questions that recur, for me, are about how the memorialisation of "traumatic histories can be done in ways that encourage collective healing and a sense of solidarity across divides" (Klein 2024). And, how when this is not the case, throughout history the transmission of trauma has been used to stir revenge and justify punitive campaigns of violence. Conversely, too, how when public or collective acts of remembrance are forbidden, mourning becomes an act of resistance. Remembering or "zochrot" in Hebrew, writes Klein, "in its truest sense is about putting the shattered and severed pieces of the self together (re-member-ing) in the hopes of becoming whole" (Klein 2024).

2024-10-08 19:24:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

"When the sand settles," said my sister on the phone earlier. I think that she meant to say "when the dust settles" but misspoke and created a one line poem.

2024-10-08 21:56:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

I wake up to news of Hurricane Milton, one of the most rapidly intensifying storms ever measured in the Gulf of New Mexico. The category 5 storm is on a path to make landfall in Western Florida by Wednesday evening in EST. My Mom just moved to Florida two months ago - on time for hurricane season. She lives in Gainesville, just north of the projected path of Milton. On various late night phone calls over the last two weeks, she has showed me mountains of debris on her street, still there from Hurricane Helene, which also passed close, but not directly over Gainesville. Later in the day, I am in a team supervision with one of my PhD students, and my co-supervisor, a geomorphologist and quaternary scientist, shares that he was planning on searching NOAA's National Centre's for Environmental Information the other day (researching data for a third year undergraduate course practical) but the NCEI headquarters are in Asheville (Buncombe County) in North Carolina, one of the cities hardest hit by Hurricane Helene in the last few days of September, and they have had a continuous power outage since. My colleague reports that most of the region's electricity substations were flood damaged, as are all the bridges. Initial damage estimates are coming out in the order of $30-45 bn. Out of >100,000 houses in Buncombe County only around 900 have flood insurance. A former NOAA scientist has estimated 40 trillion gallons of water fell. And now Milton has arrived. Normally, the NCEI would offer 'real time' products for tracking weather like Milton, and it is a crucial hub in packaging various forms of satellite, sensor and other data for a wide group of people including farmers, businessmen, insurance companies and weather services around the US. But as of today, none of NCEI's real-time tracking and forecasting features are available - this is a big hole in networks of weather data sharing and communicating. As I hold my turnstile antenna out the window for a satellite pass close to 11pm this evening, I read the prognosis of a Florida based meteorologist, speaking of Milton: "This is nothing short of astronomical... This hurricane is nearing the mathematical limit of what Earth's atmosphere over this ocean water can produce."

2024-10-09 12:50:19

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

"Even though it looks beautiful, this is very bad, this will cause a lot of damage" says a forecaster of Hurricane Milton in one of many livestreamed weather reports I consult throughout the day. He repeats this phrase several times, as if he has to convince himself that it is true. Yet he still calls Milton 'healthy' as he describes its current trajectory and form. I learn that Milton has an 'eye' or 'core' that is among the smallest ever recorded - only about 4 miles across - and this is one of the reasons its effects could be so devastating. Another forecaster uses the metaphor of an ice skater doing a spin and hugging their arms closer to their body, therefore spinning faster. A very different set of affects was offered by John Morales, a Puerto-Rico raised, Florida-based meteorologist and weather forecaster for 30+ years, who became emotional on live television yesterday while describing the fact that the pressure in Hurricane Milton had dropped 50 millibars in ten hours. Morales takes a deep, shaky breath and continues 'this is just horrific'. The video circulates widely on social media. As the hurricane moves north, its proximity to the jet stream will cause wind shear, and some of its 'arms' will 'tear to shreds' according to another newscaster. The storm will likely downgrade to a level 3 hurricane by the time it meets land. But this does not mean it will be weaker or cause less damage, as the weaker storm-system will become wider, potentially affecting much more of Florida. The jet stream will not remove enough 'arms' to reduce the storm's strength. The site of landfall remains uncertain, with some forecasts suggesting the beach of Tampa, where the consequences in terms of storm surge and infrastructure would be catastrophic, while others suggesting it may land further south. It is both fascinating and terrifying that less than twelve hours away from 'landing', the landing-site is still unknown. To follow Milton in all of these ways is thus to process an extreme set of affects, prognoses, visualisations and predictions - everything from figure skater metaphors to public displays of despair. I make a special trip to the park for a satellite pass that is quite far to the west of London, over the Atlantic. I try to stabilise my experience of Milton by 'seeing' some of the weather in its proximity, the cloud systems and extra-tropical cyclones that are somehow linked to Milton's energetic core.

2024-10-09 18:30:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

After having watched Hurricane Milton on various media throughout the day, and thinking about my family in Northern Florida, going to sleep tonight feels like a very difficult thing to do. As I try to distract myself with a book, I can still see the slowly spinning 'arms' of the hurricane, like an after-image.

2024-10-10 06:37:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

The weather today sounds like names: Milton, Kirk, and Leslie. The weather sounds too like rain, even though here it is not raining. This is because the tree outside my studio window makes a rustling, swishing, and swooshing sound in the wind. Laden with dried beanpods it has become a musical instrument. I see passersby turn to find the origin of its percussive song. While working, I tune out of the news feeds of Hurricane Milton crossing Florida and tune into the tree.

2024-10-10 12:37:28

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Representative Michele Rayner, Democratic Florida State representative calls in to Democracy Now. As the sun rises on a night that saw the landfall of Hurricane Milton, she describes the situation in St Petersburg, Florida, where there is no power, where there has been large amounts of flooding, 120 mhp winds and failures to infrastucture, including cranes collapsing into buildings. "I don't even know what my own home looks like right now" she says, "I can't get there". She describes gridlock on the highways and price gouging of hotels, flights and Airbnb accommodation in safer areas of the state. Her voice breaks up and the 'call dropping' sound happens several times. Amy asks her about the misinformation being propagated about the government withholding FEMA funding, or government officials taking peoples homes, and even that the US government is 'controlling the weather'. These are lies with life and death consequences, Amy comments. It is possible to hear Rayner say "people have lost so much... people need help" before the call drops again. Meanwhile videos of trees propelled sideways, people walking through knee deep water, and couches floating down sidewalks rolls on the screen.

2024-10-11 08:57:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 2

Vienna, Austria

Remoteness is a position. The prototype Automatic Ground Station has freed-up my time to write more contemplative, spelling error free Weather Notes, but this has come at a cost. I no longer need to go outside in all weathers at inconvenient times of the day (when I should be in a meeting, eating dinner or just doing something unrelated to satellites and weather). For several weeks, I have not had to checked satellite orbits, hold an antenna or manually decode sound and process files. As a result, I look at today's satellite image with a sense of detachment. I treat the image more like a 'data product' than an hard-won 'weather observation'. This abstraction makes the tropical storm systems just beyond the image's frame feel remote and the weather outside my window feel comfortingly local. What's more, I have allowed a 'safe' distance to open up between me and other geopolitical heavy weather. When I manually captured longer satellite images, I often looked for Black Sea or coastlines of North Africa, the Gaza Strip, Israel and Lebanon to orientate myself. Put differently, I have put the 'remote' back into remote sensing and it has become easier for me to deny shared atmospheres and storm systems, interdependencies and breath.

2024-10-11 11:27:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

Tropical Storm Leslie is brewing in the mid-Atlantic. By Monday, it may begin to reach the west coast of Spain, much like where the beautiful curving cyclone visible in today's image is swirling. For now, central Europe is dotted with a few clouds but is otherwise relatively clear. This image from an automatic ground station in my flat was captured by a turnstile antenna leaning on the windowsill, its metal dipoles shining in the noon sunlight.

2024-10-11 12:24:58

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London,

Of a day like today, Derek Jarman might write, "Crystalline sunlight, all the dark humours blown away by the wind" (1991, 235). As my partner opens the curtains in the morning, the blue of the sky pierces through the growing gaps in tree branches, blue against yellow and light brown. Before lunch I set the automatic ground station up in my flat, leaving the turnstile antenna resting against the open windowsill in the kitchen, and I head out to the park wtih my tape measure Yagi-Uda antenna. Later I enjoy comparing the images: not surprisingly, the automatic station has captured a swathe of the satellite pass to the south (as our kitchen window is south-facing) and lines of interference from the building pulse through it. Out in the park, I receive a good signal for most of the 86 degree pass, enjoying the 'crystalline' sun and the momentary break from the 'dark humours' of recent grey and rainy days.

2024-10-12 11:14:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

Today on BBC, Keir Starmer says he is remaining focused on the achievements of his new government, refusing to be distracted by 'side winds'. The phrase gives me pause, as it suggests that recent scandals around campaign donations or staff adjustments are akin to a tangential or minor wind. I think about the associations between wind and chaos, and the way the prime minister must be intent on distinguishing the focus of his government from any hint of entropy or agitation. Yet, if there are 'side winds', what is in the centre or the middle? Is it a storm, like a hurricane? Is it another wind, but one that is constant and measured? At the salon this morning, I was telling my hairdresser about my Mom's experience of Hurricane Milton, and the number of people who texted me about my Mom's safety, having seen Milton's imagery on the news, as well as the rumours and lies that have emerged in its wake, about the government creating and directing the hurricane, or refusing emergency relief. A woman who has just been styled for an upcoming hairdressers convention overhears me, and tells me she is from Idaho. "it's so fascinating what you were saying about everyone focusing on Milton" she says, "because where I'm from, in Idaho, we had the largest and most severe fire in US history earlier this year, and it did not make any headlines. No one was talking about it". I confessed I had not heard about the Idaho fires either, despite being an American, perhaps more attuned to US media than most people in the UK. She had to leave for her taxi before we could finish this conversation - which left me thinking again about 'side winds'.

2024-10-13 11:14:35

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

As I ride the 35 south from Liverpool Street the sun begins to pierce through the matted, slightly hazy sky. A current of ‘Arctic Air’ has flowed across the U.K. this weekend and lowered temperatures at least six degrees. At a performance yesterday afternoon in a roofless Anglican Church in Nunhead Cemetary, the cold entered deep into my lungs and bones. After an evening at the pub, T and I ran to the overground station and realised we had fifteen minutes to wait for the train - it felt like an interminable time in that level of cold. As we entered Tesco to warm up before the train, an older man sitting on the pavement near the streetcorner lost his paper cup in the wind and it spun into the traffic. After I retrieved it for him, he asked if I could buy him a chocolate milkshake. He drank the cold drink in big gulps as me and T ran back to the station for our train.

2024-10-13 17:06:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-10-14 11:49:15

Sasha Engelmann

Picnic table near Bourne Building, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

Arctic air, icey wind and a cold drizzle- a combination that makes any Monday morning feel especially gloomy. I take shelter under a small tree on a field between the biology and physics departments on the university campus. Part of me questions my decision to even try to catch a satelltie image, as the pass is only 50 degrees at maximum elevation to the west, and it's so freezing outside. I hum Lauryn Hill lyrics to myself as the satellite image loads, the pixels looking fractal like ice. "Possibly speak tongues / Beat drum, Abyssinian, street Baptist / Rap this in fine linen / From the beginning / My practice extending across the atlas / I begat this". The 'atlas' on my screen builds southward, tendrils of cloud extending in blurry motions, like something moving too fast before it can be captured, stilled. Every so often the tree is pushed by the wind and fat droplets shower down. The song ends: "Everything is everything / What is meant to be, will be / After winter, must come spring / Change, it comes eventually".

2024-10-15 13:15:53

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

"You might find me with some tims on, rockin fascinators and clutches / marchin' through these streets my face on double decker buses / London's been all love, from the dancehall to the pub / when we play the O2, or back when subterranea was the club / real Fugees lovers / big up you know them, all my sisters and my brothers!!" spoke Lauryn Hill, reading a poem she had written in the twenty four hours before her performance at the O2 Arena last night. T and I were in seats so far away, on the opposite side of the stadium, that the sound seemed to bounce and refract in odd echoes. But that didn't matter- squeezed into tiny steep seats, all 20,000 people were dancing the whole night. I looked over my shoulder to see several grey-haired ladies singing all the words, while below our row, a group of teenagers managed to dance and livestream at the same time. This morning the energy stayed with me as I got ready for the day, another grey and cold one in London. The park was full of dogs, including an incredibly fast whippet named Ziggy. In several places, the gilled cap of a small mushroom pushed through the blades of damp, freshly mowed grass.

2024-10-18 12:36:47

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The day started with low, misty clouds and rose to a golden, clear-skied afternoon. The last few days have been much warmer, even balmy. I noticed the transparency of fallen leaves, shining like small lanterns in the grass.

2024-10-19 12:29:47

Sasha Engelmann

Downs Road, London, United Kingdom

The sunlight stretches through the shutters as I prepare a roast vegetable and fish lunch for T and her mom who are on their way back from the airport. I mix purple carrots, magenta-striped beets and lightly gold potatoes with extra virgin olive oil and a mix of spices and herbs - a medley of oregano, peppers, sage and other 'bilke' from my grandmother's village on the island Hvar in Croatia. When the vegetables have roasted, I place three marinated 'John Dory' fish on top of everthing and keep the oven hot for another twenty minutes. As I cut, season and roast, my turnstile antenna leans out the kitchen window. My hands are too oily to hold or point it, so the resulting image is just what the antenna receives from its resting position. At one point, though, I graze the handle with the dishwasher door, and the whole antenna slips out the window and dangles on its cable over the edge- luckily there is a small ledge immediately underneath, otherwise it might have fallen to the steps below!

2024-10-21 11:15:17

Sasha Engelmann

Canada Copse, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

"Late nights in black silk in East London / Church bells in the distance / Free bleeding in the autumn rain / Fall in love again and again" sings Caroline Polachek in a somewhat cheesy but also beautiful remix of the Charli XCX song 'Everything is romantic'. The song has been circling around in my head for several days, and I hear it when I leave my flat in the dark at 6:30am this morning, spotting the waning moon in a fuzzy glow above. A tank truck rolls slowly along the edge of the park. A man in a high viz jumpsuit is walking ahead of it, using a pressurised hose to blast aside the golden leaves that paper the asphalt in wet layers. In the early morning moonlight, they look like a chimera - half machine, half person. Though Storm Ashley has not affected the southeast of England, the world feels soaked with water- a ubiquitous saturation.

2024-10-22 11:14:35

Sasha Engelmann

London Bridge, London , United Kingdom

2024-10-23 10:50:16

Sasha Engelmann

Eastfield Grass Pitch, Royal Holloway University of London , United Kingdom

The department is hosting an 'authors meets critics' session with Henry Wai-Chun Yeung, an eminent economic and human geographer from Singapore, and I am on a panel of respondents. Henry's book is called Theory and Explanation in Geography, and it synthesises vast literatures in the discipline informed by theories such as non-representational theory, actor network theory, assemblage and feminist and postcolonial theories. As I need to formulate something to say, I spend the morning and most of the afternoon buried in this book, thinking about Henry's proposals for theorising. In one chapter, Henry proposes that 'relational' theories in geography need more concreteness, focus on causation, and specificity, so that they can better explain the world. He advocates for what he calls relational ‘geometries’ or ‘relational specificity’ or ‘relational complementarity’. An example of relational geometries is regional union networks and their ways of complementing each other, to gain power and resources. The response I decide to give reflects on what a specific focus on the geometry of relation might do - how does it operate? What does it explain? I have recently been puzzling over the geometry of relations in a paper on the ‘aerial turn’ in geography - I have been observing how, for quite a while now, geographers participating in the ‘aerial turn’ are writing about air in three key modes: i) as something that flows or can be traced, most often on a line ii) as a collection of particles iii) and as a volume. Although these three ‘orientations’ to air are persuasive, and in many ways helpfully explanatory for all kinds of aerial processes, from atmospheric warfare to the relations between breathing bodies and spaces, they produce versions of air and atmosphere that are linear, particular, and volumetric, and they distance other ‘versions’ of air that are more difficult to draw into geometric forms or shapes. I have been wondering how the ‘aerial turn’ is thus reproducing spatial geometries that say more about disciplinary formalism and perhaps modernist aesthetics than anything about air itself. Geographies of air are indeed a very small part of the discipline, but in my hesitation around the ‘relational geometries’ in Henry's book, I wonder if there is something else going on here. I wondered if the proposal to adopt ‘geometries’ felt at odds with the ‘relational irresolutions’ ‘topologies’ and disorientations being developed and theorised for studies of infrastructure by people like Jerry Zee and Aya Nassar. I think also about the outpouring of work on quantum field theory and quantum mechanics in black studies and geographies, for example in new work by Pat Noxolo, and I think it is important to take seriously what a turn to the quantum does in this work, that geometry simply can’t. As important as it is to be specific and practical about spatial relations and how our theories of relation can explain causal effects, I feel that these and other movements in the discipline suggest plural, capacious, perhaps less immediately geometric forms of relation, and yet they are doing so without the vagueness or flattening that might have characterised relational theories of ten-twenty years ago. For the seminar, the room is packed- geographers from across the department are present, as well as people from other departments. Henry gives a presentation on the book and I am impressed with the way he manages to make theory sound exciting and approachable. After me and three of my colleagues have offered responses, we discuss what it means for goegraphers to 'do theory', what kind of theory that might be, and whether the issue is rather than geography is both a social science and a humanities discipline- theory works differently and does not necessarily need to 'explain' in the humanities, as it might do in the social sciences. After the event, the atmosphere of the department is animated. A PhD student comes to my office and speaks for thirty minutes about how excited she was by the seminar. From time to time, I catch a glimpse of the ginko trees outside the window of my office. The golden leaves are glowing in the afternoon sunlight, so that they seem to be projecting light in all directions.

2024-10-24 11:24:20

Sasha Engelmann

Millfields Park, London , United Kingdom

A black cloaked, elderly woman steps slowly across the dense, wet grass of Millfields Park in East London. I worry about her feet getting wet, as mine have soaked through already. Though it is nearing 12 noon, the sun casts long shadows against the plane trees, shapes forming and rearranging on the ground.

2024-10-26 10:33:00

Soph Dyer The Seaweed Institute

Helston, Cornwall, UK

A crisp and clear. Blue skies after yesterday's rain showers. The Automatic Ground Station hosted by The Seaweed Institute at the visual arts organisation CAST in Helston is online! The station's weatherised v-dipole antenna will remain inside, and so reception limited, while we search for an accessible rooftop location. The Seaweed Institute is run by Kerry Holbrook and Ruth Klückers on the south coast of Cornwall. The project connects people, seaweed and the intertidal space. Kerry and Ruth have spent the last five years working as seaweed harvesters on the Lizard Peninsula for the Cornish Seaweed Company. Ray Dyer, Soph's sister and and co-director of Goonown Growers, was also present. The day began with a visit to the community food growing project, Loveland, in nearby Penryn. Thank you, Finn and Ray, for the tour of the new polytunnel and winter crops. More updates in the coming weeks!

2024-10-26 12:36:11

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The fallen brown and golden leaves from plane trees are the brightest thing in the park today, as a grey and muted bank of cloud wraps London. I keep thinking of an interview I read with Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climatologist who is well known for studying 'Amoc' or what is now known as 'Amoc breakdown'. The article in the Guardian explains: "Amoc, or the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, is a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic. Warm surface water from the tropics flows north and releases its heat in the subpolar Atlantic, south of Greenland and west of Britan and Ireland. Then it cools and sinks to a depth between 2,000m to 3,000 m before returning south as a cold current. Amoc is one of our planet's largest heat transport systems, moving the equivalent of 50 times the human energy use, and it has a particularly strong impact on the climate in Europe". This description of great waters rising and sinking, and carrying heat across the planet, is captivating. Yet scientists like Rahmstorf suspect Amoc could be slowing down and even about to stop. Apparently "the most ominous sign is the cold blob over the northern Atlantic. The region is the only place in the world that has cooled in the past 20 years or so, while everywhere else on the planet has warmed - a sign of reduced heat transport into the region". There is also "excessive heating along the east coast of North America" which could be another sign of a slowing Amoc current that drifts closer to shore, and the "reduction of salt content of seawater" especially in the "blob region". A less salty 'blob' is harder to sink, and therefore harder to mix into the Amoc cycle. According to Rahmstorf, there is a 50/50 chance that Amoc stops in our current century. The collapse of Amoc will have global effects: the sea level of the Atlantic will rise by half a metre, the tropical rainfall belt will shift south, leading to floods in places not adapted to so much rain, and droughts elsewhere, and less CO2 would be taken up by the oceans, further driving global warming. Rahmstorf explains that all of these changes are poorly modelled by scientists and reported on by the IPCC because they are considered extreme, but at the same time they are probable, and on a timescale that humans alive today may witness. As the satellite image I am capturing loads line by line, I peer into the darkness of the North Atlantic. I think about the word 'Amoc' and how it can also have connotations of 'going astray' or 'running wild'. I wonder whether I can see the 'cold blob' west of Ireland, and what one might see in that part of the ocean in decades to come.

2024-10-27 10:35:55

Steve Engelmann

Pacific Palisades, California, United States

In a late morning pass overlooking the Pacific from some neighborhood bluffs. A thin layer of stratocumulus clouds add a calming effect to the Fall and a little more than a week before the US election. Hardly a mention of the climate crisis amid fictitious tales about Haitian immigrants and praise of Nazi generals. Crossing my fingers for a favorable forecast.

2024-10-27 11:23:20

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

I awoke to a creeping feeling that the plants in my and T's flat were feeling very happy today. Leaves of monstera deliciosa, begonia maculata and weeping willow seemed unusually vibrant and springy from their stems. The lower angle of the sun at this point in the autumn means that the flat is flooded with rays. Throughout the morning, the sun climbed slowly over the three-story houses and the 'Open Doors' Baptist Church directly opposite our second floor windows. Later in the park, a local young family and a couple of mid-20s french women asked about my antenna, and I got to explain the 'magic' of radio twice. It was so bright I had to squint to see their faces. Above, an intersecting set of contrails looked like another, much larger Yagi-Uda, pointing south.

2024-10-27 11:25:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 11

London, United Kingdom

2024-10-28 11:11:12

Sasha Engelmann

Between Biology and Physics departments, Royal Holloway University of London , United Kingdom

The Ginko trees make pools of yellow everywhere on campus, from the parking lots behind student dorms, to the small copses between departments. As the day is grey lit and damp, and Heathrow borne planes roar past overhead, invisible through the cloud, the pools of colour are welcome. Later in the afternoon, Soph and I compare 'lighting gell' colours on a role of about 200 samples, ranging from fluorescent magenta to eggshell yellow. The colours come with short descriptions of their intensities and transparencies. Soph asks me to hold up the small rectangular transparent samples against a black and white photograph in a book on my desk, the better to compare how the colour enhances or mutes the detail in the image. It is difficult to make a choice of colour when only one of us can actually see the physical 'gell'. We end up choosing a green called 'half plus green', which is a more transparent version of a green called 'plus green'. Hovering between a bright green and a lemony mint, and around 80% transparent, the green film adds a beautiful intensity to grayscale text and imagery. As I leave campus at 5:30 it is almost pitch black. Students in hooded sweaters walk past in small groups, dorm kitchens are brightly illuminated, and rows of liquor bottles balance precariously on window ledges. As I pass the parking lot into the deep dark of the woods at the bottom of campus, a Ginko leaf catches my attention- it is fanned out against the asphalt, an opaque yellow through which dark textures permeate.

2024-10-29 10:17:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 11

London, United Kingdom

As I leave for a workshop with a PhD student in Bloomsbury, early this morning, I set up my turnstile on the kitchen windowsill. Making sure its 'reflector' spokes are inside the window, and the cable is taped to the window ledge, I leave the flat. Upon returning many hours later - after cycling over 1.5 hours in total across London, through streets heavy with mist, smog and traffic - the antenna is still there, poised to receive. I wondered, as no one was in the flat when it recorded, whether the plants sensed what was happening. I wondered if the simultaneous recording of Automatic Ground Station 11 on the kitchen table, connected via a thick coiled cable to the turnstile antenna on the window, together with two other Automatic Ground Stations in T's studio (not connected to antennas) changed the conditions of the flat in some way. I enjoyed thinking of the three stations lighting up on cue, all attempting to track and receive radio waves from NOAA-19.

2024-10-30 10:05:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 11

London, United Kingdom

Today is humid, over 80%, and this creates blurry lines and fuzzy borders. The sky hangs low over London. In the evening, news of the flash flooding in Spain comes online, and T and I watch with horror as Channel 4 news shows images of people being airlifted from flooded homes, holding tightly to their pets, and cars having been pushed across streets and cities - piled up, water logged.

2024-10-31 09:50:53

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The humidity is 100% today. When T and I wake up, we see condensation on the living room and kitchen windows- as if the flat is sweating. Yet it is not warm, it is strangely cold. Later in the morning, I find myself getting anxious at the amount of assessments I have to review for an external examiner appointment at another university, and for which I need to synthesise feedback to the whole department by the end of tomorrow. To calm down, I spend twelve minutes on the couch after lunch meditating with the help of an app. This meditation is called 'Sense' and at several points, the guiding voices says 'There's no need to go out looking for sounds. Just like a satellite dish, we can simply receive what's coming'. I find myself puzzling at this metaphor while the meditation continues, so much so that I realise I am not following the instructions anymore. Does a satellite dish 'simply receive what's coming'? And is the body anything like a satellite dish? I remember the meditation Soph invented for their students in Eindhoven, called 'Your body is an antenna'. I have always loved this meditation, and find that it makes sense- an antenna can just exist, and it can pick up a wide ranging but also environmentally limited amount of information around. A satellite dish, on the other hand, feels intent on capture, on picking up a television signal. Later in the day, after I have made some headway through the external examining, my body antenna feels less tense, more open. Outside I can hear the beginnings of Halloween, as mobs of small children spill out of houses and make small shrieks of excitement on their way down the street.

2024-11-01 12:01:36

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The reports of flash flooding in Valencia fill the front pages of newspapers in London. At lunchtime, the BBC shares the feed of a Spanish news network where a journalist breaks into tears while describing the losses of life, and damage to neighbourhoods. "The worst part..." he says in between attempts to catch his breath "is that our government knew that this was going to happen. They knew this was coming, and they did nothing". Hundreds of people are known to be dead, and some are still missing after days of search and rescue. "There is mud everywhere" an English reporter comments "on everything, on me". In London, the city is covered in low gray cloud, light barely penetrates through. On my way to mail one of the new open-weather automatic ground stations to northern Scotland, I pick up a copy of the Guardian and try to take a picture of its cover near a market on Mare Street in a way that also captures the lack of light, the gray mist, the way even important stories and images of loss seem slightly shadowed, out of focus.

2024-11-02 08:10:31

Steve Engelmann

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

8am on a Saturday morning outside the Strat casino in Las Vegas is pretty quiet. Few cars, but a disheveled man with many tattoos asked me if I was communicating with aliens. When I told him I was receiving an image from a passing NOAA satellite, he seemed interested - but not enough for a conversation.

2024-11-02 11:41:15

Steve Engelmann

Near Nelson ghost town, Nevada, US, Nevada

On my way to my nephew's wedding I pulled over near the Colorado River for a satellite capture. There has been controversy regarding who gets to use the Colorado River water. California has gotten the lion's share mostly, but the quantity has been declining for several decades and sometimes it doesn't reach Mexico. The best of plans get ruined when there isn't enough water. All the best wishes to Chris and Heather.

2024-11-03 10:29:57

Steve Engelmann

Red Rock Conservation Area, Nevada, United State, Nevada

United State, Nevada

The Red Rock Conservation Area, just outside of Las Vegas, has been a work in progress for over 500 million years. It has seen oceans, sand dunes, the formation and dissolution of supercontinents, mass extinctions, indigenous peoples and more. Midway through the satellite capture sudden strong winds blew away my notes (later retrieved) and nearly capsized my laptop from a precarious railing (I should make better choices in the future). I was stabilizing my computer against the wind with one hand, tracking a satellite with the other and trying to convince some humanities academics from Chico State that the extraterrestrial I was following was benign - all in preparation for my audition at the 3-ring Circus. On the time log of Red Rock Canyon us humans will be nothing more than a minor footnote. What mark shall we leave on the geologic record?

2024-11-03 18:39:01

Sasha Engelmann

Petra Kočića Street, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

“Gdje je mala sreća, bljesak stakla, lastavičje gnjezdo, iz vrtića dah; gdje je kucaj zipke, što se makla, i na traku sunca zlatni kućni prah?” wrote Ivan Goran Kovačić in the poem Jama or ‘the pit’. It describes village life near the town of Jasenovac in modern day Croatia. In these lines, happiness flows through a ‘window’s glint’ and ‘windborne garden sweet’. It manifests ‘by the threshold, sunshine at my feet’. These lines evoke a bucolic, gentle, rural life. And yet the poem - immediately recognisable from these four lines by anyone borne in the Balkans - is far from a picture of happiness. It narrates what occurred at the town of Jasenovac after Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during WWII, and installed an Independent State of Croatia (NDH) ruled by the nationalist Ustaše militia. Jasenovac became the site of one of the deadliest forced labour and extermination camps of the war. What happened at the camp is disputed, but most evidence suggests that the majority of people imprisoned and executed at Jasenovac were ethnic-Serbs, largely civilians brought there for their collaboration with Partisan rebels. My grandfather, Deda Milan, was one of those anti-fascist Serbs brought to Jasenovac, but luckily he was released after my great grandmother, of Croatian / Hungarian heritage, managed to use her influence to save him. Roma, Jews, and political communists were also targeted. Kovačić’s poem goes on to narrate the horrors of Jasenovac in gruesome detail, and its power in communicating these scenes made it one of the most celebrated anti-war poems of its time. Most children educated in former Yugoslavia (and even, I learn at dinner in Banja Luka, in present day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) learn this poem in school. This context might help explain why the lines quoted at the beginning of this note - about happiness, gardens and sunny thresholds - are engraved in a plaque inside a large scale monument designed by Bogdan Bogdanović in the 1960s that now stands at the former centre of the Jasenovac camp. Its shape resembles a giant flower with six petals from some angles, but from others, it looks like a pair of wings. The edges of the petals are sharp, and diamond shaped holes allow the sky to shine through, against the heaviness of concrete. As I walked around it at sunset, its form seemed to transform, always asymmetrical. In the landscape around the monument, Bogdanović created mounds to denote the places where buildings of the camp used to stand. The monument was Bogdanović’s attempt to memorialise the history of civilian suffering without reproducing it, toward “termination of the inheritance of hatred that passes from generation to generation". To place lines of poetry depicting ‘sunny thresholds’ or ‘windblowne gardens’ at the heart of this monument is perhaps to use peaceful images - peaceful weathers - to break the ‘inheritance of hatred’ while recognising the importance of careful, watchful memory.

2024-11-04 10:44:11

Sasha Engelmann

Roadside near Raðici, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Turning off a narrow street, we climb a dirt road into hills of farmland. The smell of manure permeates the car as we pass farm equipment and local men that wave kindly at us. I think I hear one of them call out but he doesn’t follow us. The road winds steeply onward and turns against the edge of recently turned fields. Next to two stacks of hay, sandwiched between two different fields, both steaming with manure and dust, we can see curved shapes of stone. At the base of the hill, a plaque in an odd mix of Latin and Cyrillic letters, lines running at odd angles, seems like a warning, but we climb the hill anyway. We are completely alone except for two men driving tractors. There, on the hilltop, is a kind of assembly, a collection of surreal stone figures around two metres tall, arranged at odd angles to each other, resting on stone plinths. Like serpents with eyes or faces in contorted shapes the figures peer wildly and hauntingly into the distance. I notice there are rotting cobs of corn scattered on the grass in places, and I wonder if there are any offerings to these creatures. The site is Nekropola žrtvama fašizma (Necropolis for the Victims of Fascism) or Spomenik na Smrika (Monument on Smrike) designed by Bogdan Bogdanović and it is both monument and underground crypt. This is the site of a great massacre of around 700 Serbian civilians and communists by Ustaše forces during WWII. Of the monument, Bogdanović apparently said: “It is a story of mythical creatures: the ambisbaena is a two-headed serpent that goes by day in one direction and by night in another. It symbolizes the end of time." To me, though, the figures are less serpent-like and more like currents or energies. Leaving Smrike by car, it is not long before we enter a valley shrouded in haze, and it only increases in density as we approach Sarajevo. We notice white smoke plumes pouring out of peoples’ chimneys and large currents of either steam or particulate flooding from thermo electric plants. I remember reading how a combination of local fuel burning in winter and heavy industry is creating an air pollution crisis in this part of Bosnia. The five o’ clock prayer echoes from minarets as the air thickens, spectral timing as voices mingle and seem to repeat across the landscape, and materialise the feeling that the air is a carrier of many things in these valleys, of faith and ghosts and microscopic toxicity. I think about the double headed serpent invoked by Bogdanović and I wonder about the ‘end of time’. T and I both peer hard at the sky, wondering if we are seeing the sickle moon or a strange small arc in the sky. When the air is so thick and unbreathable, do we see and feel time passing more slowly, finding our circadian rhythms numbed, or do we see and feel what lies underground?

2024-11-05 07:32:33

Steve Engelmann

Pacific Palisades, California, United States

As the sun rises over the western US, the national election is in full swing. Regardless of the outcome, about half of the US adult population agrees with a candidate who thinks the climate crisis is a hoax played by the Chinese government. As president he pulled the US out of the Paris Accord and promises to resurrect the coal industry. Two days before the election he stated that the cool weather in Pennsylvania was "evidence". Looking out upon the calm Pacific Ocean hasn't done much to calm my nerves - yet.

2024-11-05 17:48:43

Sasha Engelmann

Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

It’s dark, and I am standing in the botanical garden of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. It has been a sunny, cold day. Across the street from where I am standing is the US Embassy, a place whose politics will change in the next 24, or maybe 48 hours, depending on how close the election is. The embassy is measuring the air quality as part of the IQ Air network. The level of pollution is currently 122 on the AQI scale, meaning ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’. The main pollutant contributing to this unhealthy air is PM2.5, the most deadly of the microscopic particles. In comparison, London’s air today is around 70-80. It feels somewhat prescient that, on the day my home country is voting to elect (or not) a fascist leader, I have been conducting historical research on the Antifašistička Fronta Žena (AFŽ) at the nonprofit organisation and art space called Crvena. I learned about women’s efforts to organise between 1942-1953, largely around issues related to women’s working lives, their capacity to aid in the fight against fascism by taking up all manner of jobs, their need for labour recognition, their literacy, and childcare practices. As Andreja Dugandžić, co-director of Crvena explained to me, the term ‘feminism’ was not so popular at the time as it was seen as a bourgeois idea, but a ‘women’s antifascist front’ was a concrete and inspiring movement for many women in former Yugoslavia. I read magazines like ‘Nova Žena’, poems by women writers, and looked at prints and engravings. Some of it felt very contemporary - expressions of power and voice - while other parts would turn to the domestic, for example ‘how to treat diarrhoea in your baby’ or even an article on 'butchering chickens'. One article was called ‘čudno kuhinje’ (strange cooking) and I look forward to translating it to understand what kind of cooking the AFŽ thought to be strange! I wasn’t able to understand or read everything given my basic Croatian/Serbian /Bosnian, but I absorbed so many themes and images, it will take months to entirely unpack. I am left with the feeling of the Yugoslav women’s antifascist movement as a prideful one. I also felt something resonant between the thematics of the AFŽ and what I have come to understand as ‘cuerpo-territorio’ (body-land) in South American feminisms. Like cuerpo-territorio, the movement of AFŽ was about relations to land, as much as it was about anti-fascist struggle. Sharing some of the poems of 'Nova Žena' with my Mom, she immediately replied with the exclamation that she felt so much pride, like those women did, and that she also wrote poems as a teenager in Belgrade about the pride and struggle ('borba') of Yugoslavia. As I ride the tram back to the hotel, I think of my Mom, who now lives in the 'red state' of Florida, and I reflect, not without a lot of worry, about the political systems she has weathered in her life.

2024-11-06 09:40:11

Sasha Engelmann

Miljacka River, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Thankfully it is morning now, and the sun is shining on the Maljicka River in Sarajevo. I woke around 1am last night in tears, thinking of all of the places I have seen so far on this trip in the Balkans, and the way my family history is so inscribed in this landscape, a landscape that has felt so much pain. I thought about the memories the landscape holds, that monuments to anti-fascist resistance or tombs of fallen fighters, or memorials to the more recent Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, only manage to represent partially. Upon properly waking, the news of the US election was shocking, but somehow dulled by the intensity of the last few days. I almost found it darkly humorous, that in the week I am spending engaging with my family’s history, and the very concrete, serious struggle of anti-fascism, a movement for which my great grandfather risked everything, a fascist has been elected to power in my birth country. As the news sunk in later in the day, the dark humour faded and despair set in. I kept the despair at bay by throwing myself head first into the story of Sarajevo womens’ resistance to authoritarian power, and their role in the communist movement. T and I drove to see a monument to Sarajevo victims of the national liberation war at Vraća Park, on the west of the city. The park itself is not well maintained, with trash and graffiti everywhere, and much of the original stone architecture crumbling. However, at the far end of the park, stands a monument to ‘Women Fighters’ by Sarajevo sculptor Alija Kučukalić. The sculpture is a 2-3 metre tall figure of a woman, from the torso up, wearing a sharp jacket, and gazing to the sky, arms open in a cactus shape and fists clenched. She has a long braid that flows down her back, and her face turns upward. An early sketch for the sculpture that I found online shows a female figure with an agonising face - indeed the original title of the work was “Stratišta” (Executions). While the sculpture is meant to be representative of all fallen women victims and fighters, many believe the sculpture depicts Radojka Lakić, a female leader of the Sarajevo underground communist resistance who was executed at Vraća in September 1941. The sculpture is in poor condition, emblematised by the fact that the right arm has been sawed off. Yet, even with only one arm raised, the figure is striking - a reminder of the immense strength of resistance, and the cost of truly fighting fascism.

2024-11-09 07:33:11

Steve Engelmann

Pacific Palisades, California, United States

In the wake of last week's national election I've been trying to find silver linings among the chaos and wild projections over what the next four years will bring. My email feed has been flooded with requests from environmental/social justice NGOs. Apparently membership and donations increased during the last time this happened. In blue California there are pockets of red. Beverly Hills High School needed to institute new regulations to tone down celebrations by teens. Monday is the beginning of the next climate conference - COP 29. The tone of the conference will pivot widely on the election results. Curious to see what, if any, strategies arise. Hopped up on my roof this morning to capture NOAA 15. Seems as if some power lines interfered with the end of the pass.

2024-11-09 11:22:19

Sasha Engelmann

Tagliamento Riverbank, Latisana , Italy

I emerged from an overgrown path, full of fallen birch branches and reeds, onto a small sandy bluff above the bank of the Tagliamento. The river ran a cool green-blue that changed shades as clouds periodically covered the winter sun. It was chilly but not cold. The sound of farm equipment echoed over the opposite riverbank and a single engine plane passed by overhead. This weekend, the village of Latisana is celebrating the festival of San Martino. As T's mom tells us, traditionally this festival marked the time when farmers (il contadini) had sold their autumn harvests and had some spending money. They would celebrate as lavishly as they could. Most women were married around this time, when their families could afford to purchase cloth, lace and housewares for dowries. I sat on a mushroom-speckled birch log and watched the slow moving water. A strikingly blue bird - perhaps an Eurasian Blue Tit - landed on a branch near the beach and darted away. A small flock of pigeons skidded to the water’s edge, dipped their beaks in the river for a split second, and took off again. They returned at least five times in the same configuration. Yesterday, as T and I returned to Italy from Rijeka, last week seemed like a blur- a blur that felt very similar to the smog-fog of Sarajevo and its surrounding villages. At some distance to the Balkans, I can now visualise the histories, weathers, archives and monuments that I visited in the last week with a little more sharpness and clarity, like the circuitous and sandy curves of the Tagliamento.

2024-11-10 09:17:26

Sasha Engelmann

Via Giovanni da Udine, Latisana, Italy

A NOAA-15 satellite pass at only 21 degrees to the west was not the strongest option for an image of the Adriatic, but I wanted to capture one last satellite image while nearby to this sea. Standing at the corner of a balcony reachable from T's childhood room, I fished for signals in the quiet Sunday morning. I could hear the squeak of laundry lines being pulled in, and the occasional shutter being lifted, but otherwise it was calm, near-silent. The sky lifted into a clear blue and I felt a little cold in the wool jumper that T's mom had given me when she last visited in London.

2024-11-10 12:19:21

Albany, Oregon, USA

I’m really struggling to get images. I have SLIGHTLY better luck with a dipole. I tried a random wire to see if that helped but not really. I’m working on building a QFH but it’s complicated. I’ll keep at it.

2024-11-11 09:49:13

Steve Engelmann

Pacific Palisades, United States

Looking out over the Pacific Ocean on another beautiful day. City crews are busy behind me trying to stabilize the bluffs from their relentless slide towards the ocean. Multimillion-dollar homeowners are in denial of the inevitable, attempting to resist the forces of nature. It has been nearly a week since the election. Trying to find my tribe. Spent most of my Saturday with Climate Strike LA. This morning it was a zoom meeting with Human Rights Watch. Concerned, but feeling the energy. We too shall resist.

2024-11-11 11:33:59

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

A radio antenna arrives in the mail, from Florida. It comes in a rectangular box covered almost halfway down one end with rainbow 'first class' stamps, each individually advocating for breast cancer awareness. For the first two hours of the morning, Soph, Lizzie, Dan and I discuss ways to 'animate' material in the Public Archive spatially, textually and visually. Later I test three 'automatic ground stations' in various corners of my flat, and watch them boot-up to a new version (v1.1.4) of the programme they are running. Around 11:30 I catch a NOAA-18 pass from Hackney Downs, happy once again to be back in the park with my tape measure Yagi-Uda antenna. Though I do lots of university work as well, catching up on the various crises and urgent demands in my inbox, today is a day mostly 'weathered' by open-weather.

2024-11-12 10:04:55

At the cross roads, but the tram lines, Austria

Grey skies, newly biting cold. My attempt at recording a satellite pass for several weeks. I forgot the radio frequency extension able and used a wobbly USB converter… which caused SDR++ to freeze multiple times. Next time I will pack different kit.

2024-11-12 11:23:50

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It is a brilliantly sunny day in London and the sky is a deep, clear blue. A lonely cloud skirts the horizon to the east. As I set up for the satellite pass in the park, I think of a poem I have just tried to translate from Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian. It is called 'Pjesma žena' or 'woman's song' and it was written by Ana Matanja who is described as 'seljanka iz Ledenica' or 'villager from Ledenica'. The first lines go like this: Crna noćca svud pritisla Nigde bjela dana, U kuhinju stoji žena Ćvrste prikevana To je bilo prošlog ljeta A sad toga nije The poem- from the archive of the Antifašistička Fronta Žena in Sarajevo - describes a scene in which the 'The black night fell / no daylight anywhere / A woman is standing in the kitchen / Tightly chained / That was last summer / And now it is no longer' (loosely translated by me). It goes on to make a call to arms and to the voices of women who form that AFŽ to protect their rights, including those of voting. The author - Matanja - is a villager, but 'Ledenica' literally translates as 'icicle' or 'icebox'. This, combined with the scene of the first lines, gives this poem of activism and mobilisation a sense of the dark, the cold, and the surreal. As I attempt to catch the last fragments of signal from NOAA-18 over the southern horizon by standing on my tiptoes, two dog walkers approach and ask what I am doing. I explain, and we chat about my tape measure Yagi antenna briefly. As they are leaving, the man of the couple turns around and says: 'It's not who you know, it's what you know!'

2024-11-12 11:24:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 13

London , United Kingdom

I duck-taped my turnstile antenna to the kitchen window while I went outside to capture the same satellite pass with my tape measure Yagi-Uda. Collecting two images - one from an AGS and one from a mobile station - will help us identify if there are any unusual patterns in the images collected by the AGS.

2024-11-14 08:20:04

Southern Ocean, Antarctica

This day was sunny and clear, which was very rare to see during my trip through the Southern Ocean. The second mate has told be this is the grayest, stormiest research cruise he's ever been on. But this particular morning broke clear and bright and while it got a bit dark midday the afternoon was sunny again which offered a shadow of the ship onto the pancake ice. Later, at what would be considered night but is in fact still light, the people of the ship would all pour out onto the decks to see the last glorious iceberg patch we would end up having passed through. The remainder of the time at sea would be in open ocean.

2024-11-14 10:19:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 13

London , United Kingdom

2024-11-15 08:05:33

Southern Ocean, Antarctica

This is the farthest south towards Antarctica my body would go, although I didn't really put that together at the time I was receiving this image.

2024-11-15 10:43:20

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

As the sun gets lower in the winter sky, the plants in our flat receive more light, and today they seem to be basking in it. The flat almost feels like a greenhouse with fronds and stems poking out of all corners. One of our bushy plants is even growing a new orange flower from between two leaves. A finger of dust reaches from Tunis to the Balearic Sea, another from Misrata into the Mediterranean. During the satellite pass, a group of dog walkers notices me and my antenna, and while they stay on the far side of the field, I overhear the older woman in the group tell the others - 'yes yes... she does the weather'. Later, as I await the phone call of a doctor, the passing of the light feels slow and sluggish. I bury myself in email hoping to move it along.

2024-11-15 11:46:37

Magazin, Rembrandtstraße 14, 1020 Vienna, Austria

I finish writing the talk at the same time as my phone alarm rings, reminding me to leave the relative warmth of our studio to receive NOAA-18's transmission. The satellite will pass 77º overhead. It always feels like a waste to not catch such a 'good' pass, so I pack my ground station bag make the short cycle to the edge of the Augarten park. I have learned to stay outside the its impressive brick perimeter wall, so as to avoid confrontation with Austrian rules-based culture. In the past year, multiple gardeners have told me that I need permission to have an antenna in the park and my German is not good enough to argue. The satellite is above the horizon when I hit record. I use the 10 minutes of bleep-bleeps to think about what I will say tonight. The talk is written, but I want to begin with a pause to think of Gaza, our former classmates, friends and colleagues in the Middle East, and to hold in our minds those whose names we will never know but whose existence is resistance to Israel's genocidal drive. The architectural exhibition that the talk is a response to is a installation of Breathe Earth Collective's archive. Material samples, organic matter, salt, copper pipes and more fill the gallery space, each exhibit labelled with a small paper number as part of archeological dig or forensic scene. This anarchic yet indexed presentation and the earthy smell of decay in the gallery reminded me of the book 'M Archive: After the end of the world' by American writer and poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs, in particular her description of an 'Archive of Dirt'. The book is dedicated "to the purveyors of our bright black future". Tonight I will read for Gaza the following poem: they came with sugar not of sugarcane sweetness not of cotton but of air they came with cakes not funneled down to grease with layers like clouds they came every day like it was their birthday or yours one or both that was when they first came and then they came with salt with water and blood to wash you they came with spit and sand to shine you they came with cleansing first in mind and woke your soul with it next time they come i hope they bring soil and green soothe for the roots i hope they bring dirt and depth and plant us in it we could sure use the grounding for remembering earth' Alexis Pauline Gumbs, 2018

2024-11-17 10:52:00

Steve Engelmann

Venice Beach, United States

Went to capture a satellite pass from the Venice Pier. Beautiful blue skies. The pier is covered with tourists, fishermen and many spectators watching the 40 plus surfers on both sides of the pier. A number of people approached me curious about what trouble I was into. There was a family with three small children from Italy, a pair of senior citizens and a guy named Sidney. All were dazzled with the antenna and the concept. To complete the magic trick I used my phone as a hotspot and decoded the wav file live. The audience was impressed. Two weeks after the election the news is full of the latest on the cabinet picks for the next administration - an anti-vaxer in charge of health, a former oil executive to regulate fracking, and an alleged sex-trafficker to run the justice department. I wish I believed in magic.

2024-11-17 11:58:56

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

In a short essay titled 'The sound of temperature rising' in the edited book 'Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear' (Irene Revell and Sarah Shin), Christine Sun Kim writes of an artwork she made while pregnant with her first child, and while watching the devastation of Trump's first term as president. She elaborates, "Persistent droughts, floods and storms were marking the effects of climate change and a warming world. I felt these different kinds of rising temperatures intertwining, and used an open-ended musical notation to capture the feeling. When I draw musical staff lines, I use four lines instead of the standard five, which references how staff bars would be signed in American Sign Language (ASL) as four fingers pulled across the front of the body. Like my other mural and billboard works, I want the scale to actively impose Deaf people's existence and culture into the everyday lives of hearing people". Kim's drawing is evocative - four lines curve from the bottom of the page to the top right, and musical notes dance on either end. The line 'the sound of temperature rising' hovers above. Today, as I think about the multiplicity of weather during a satellite pass in Hackney Downs, and reflect on how much of the 'sound of temperature rising' is felt in our bodies, our lungs and other organs, Kim's artwork and words resonate powerfully. Around halfway through the satellite pass, as the image creeps down my screen and the deep darkness of the Arctic circle gives way to a few pieces of lighter cloud and land, the satellite almost over London, a football player comes trotting over. He finds my tape measure Yagi antenna interesting, commenting, 'I never would have thought a tape measure could be so useful!'. When I point to my screen, he drops his chest and body to the field so fast it startles me, and for a moment he has his face a couple inches way from the slow-loading image. I become self-conscious of the layer of dust on my laptop which, combined with the glaring sunlight of the afternoon, makes the satellite image challenging to make out. Yet he hops up as quickly as he went down, and satisfied with his understanding, jogs away.

2024-11-18 08:07:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It was 8am, but the sun hadn't properly risen over Hackney. As stream of uniformed children ran across it diagonally, somehow in an evenly spaced line, sleepily on their way to the primary school on the opposite corner. In five minutes I was smothered by a black terrier, trounced on by a visla, and I had to separate an Australian shepherd from the previous two, while their owners called vainly in the distance. Perhaps my status as a single dog-less human in the middle of the largest field meant I was a good one to mess with! As I was testing an Automatic Ground Station outside for the first time, using a battery pack and my phone as a hotspot, I was anxious that one of the dogs would sit or step on the delicate cables or pee on the station itself, open as it is to the air because of the need for heat vents. Luckily only one dog leg brushed the AGS, and in a few minutes more, they had raced off. The satellite image collected by the station was oddly grainy, and I resolved to try again later tonight, after 9pm.

2024-11-18 11:05:52

Kleingarten Schmelz and Waxeneck, Austria

It's cloudy and cold, but no longer freezing. It's also Monday yet, I mistakenly checked the satellite pass times for Sunday. My displaced weekend feeling is because N and I have taken off work. We decided to only last week. The idea is to spend a day outside the heavy weather that has characterised this year. So far, we have gone swimming and eaten omelettes with pickles. Later, we plan to cook a roast and watch an episode of Self-portrait in a Coffee-Pot. In other words, cultivate our own fragile high pressure system. If its strong enough, maybe it'll even persist into the week, this indoor sunshine.

2024-11-19 20:49:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

It has rained, it has snowed, and the crevices and corners of London are thoroughly drenched in semi-freezing moisture. This is testing the infrastructures of the city, a city that one might expect could have weathered many cold winters in its time. Yet, one of my best friends, K, who was over for a spontaneous Monday dinner last night, told me and T of her crumbling, disintegrating roof in Dalston. The roof has been leaking for months, and mould has been growing along the walls and in corners. She had stopped paying rent after her umpteenth attempt to ask the landlord for repairs, failed. Within weeks of her stopping payment, the landlord had workers visit the flat, and they claimed to have 'fixed' the issue. But yesterday, when she got home after dinner, she texted me photos and videos of the rain coming straight down onto her floor. A long curving crack in the ceiling gave me shivers- as if the whole roof was going to collapse. Luckily, K left to stay at her girlfriend's place. I couldn't help but think how many people in London are feeling similar exposures to the rain, the cold. How many walls are being eaten from the inside out, by the creep of humidity and the mould that thrives in it? I tested the AGS in the park late at night today. I didn't want to 'expose' the AGS in the park, less because of weather, wind or rain, and more because a number of people have had phones stolen in the park recently. As the AGS is so conspicuous with its glowing light, I hid it in a tote bag. For the antenna, I wrapped the legs of an rtl-sdr v-diple around the top of a PVC pipe. Standing in the middle of the dark field, holding the pole to the sky, I felt a little like a fictional character enacting some magical ritual. The moon rose against the silhouetted plane trees and the outlines of bodies crossed under lamp posts. Most avoided the dark, open grass.

2024-11-20 20:39:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

A freezing night in the park, with a clear, faintly star-lit sky. As I return to Hackney Downs long after sunset to test the open-weather Automatic Ground Stations, I am getting better at recognising night-time park activity. Though many people warned me of entering the park at night, I am growing to feel more safe. Perhaps its something about holding a tall pole with a metal object attached at the end. I've also realised that, while daytime park activity happens on the fields, with dogs galloping and racing around each other, night-time park life stays close to pathways and the deeper shadows of trees. I have rarely seen another person walk directly across the largest field, where I stood this evening. As I watch the BBC weather report later in the evening, I learn that the beginnings of a 'possibly named storm' are brewing in the North Atlantic. I wonder and try to anticipate what the name of this storm will be.

2024-11-21 07:17:23

Steve Engelmann

Pacific Palisades, California, United States

Took another satellite capture from the bluffs over-looking the Pacific Ocean. Over the last couple of days a "bomb cyclone" formed and is making landfall in the Pacific Northwest. The name comes from how fast the storm developed. Heavy rains and strong winds have hit Washington state already. A few lives were lost to falling trees. From the image you can see a tail of the cyclone that might bring some precipitation to Southern California in the next few days. While recording the pass a construction worker came over for a chat. He asked if I was recording aliens. I later pulled up a hotspot, decoded the wav file and showed him the image. He then asked me if the world is really round or flat. I guess sometimes it is however you want to see it.

2024-11-21 11:09:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Today's test of an Automatic Ground Station involves me carrying the AGS in a tote bag to keep it dry and away from dogs, and tracking the satellite with my Yagi-Uda antenna. The results show a diagonal current of squigly lines in channel b - lines we think might have something to do with a recent update to the code in the AGS system that attempted to produce clearer images, but might have introduced other noise signatures. The air is still freezing, and I regret not bringing gloves and a woolly hat.

2024-11-22 08:21:11

Southern Ocean,

Another day, another storm in the Southern Ocean. I thought about removing the tip of my finger from my photo of my station, tucked in with the Zodiac boats and surrounded by coring equipment, but it shows a signal of how difficult it can be to operate anything that isn't tied down. The rolling of the ship and the strength of the mind make any one-handed task just on the edge of impossible. I don't expect to experience weather like this again in my lifetime, but I also don't hold a lot of expectations that anything will remain as expected.

2024-11-24 09:58:41

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Storm Bert - the 'named storm' that was brewing on the Atlantic when I last contributed to the Archive on Thursday - is sweeping the UK this weekend. "More than 200 flood alerts put in place and three men die on roads as wild weather crosses country" reports the Guardian this morning. The flood alerts are due to the rapid melting of ice and snow across the north of England and Scotland, as the storm brought milder temperatures. Indeed today in London, it is shockingly warm, around 17 degrees- a huge jump from previous days. The Met Office has issued yellow warnings for rain and wind across large swathes of the country into Sunday, and this is felt in London, with gusts battering houses, trees and infrastructure. As I braved the park with my turnstile antenna, I noticed how a mountain of plane tree leaves had been pushed against the fence near the train tracks, drowning two bikes and the fence itself. In the middle of Hackney Downs, the force of the wind meant that people walked with their heads down, hoods pulled over their faces. My laptop flung wildly left and right as I tried to track the satellite pass. The turbulence reminded me of a day back in 2021 when Soph and I went out to Burgess Park to capture an image of Storm Eunice- against the advice of the Met Office- and I had to kneel on my laptop to keep it from flying away. The blustery conditions affected the satellite image I captured today, as I struggled to keep hold of the antenna. Oddly, although the Guardian headlines its reports with various numbers of injuries and deaths across England and Wales, reading further into the reporting, a phrase consistently repeats: 'It was not clear whether the incident was linked to the storm'.

2024-11-24 11:08:24

Steve Engelmann

Malibu, California, United States

I went to the Lois Ewen Overlook in the Santa Monica Mountains hoping to maximize my capture length, but missed the first few minutes of the satellite pass. At the beginning we were in complete fog-out with a visibility of maybe 20 meters. By the time I took photos there was better visibility. The day before was the first precipitation of the year, though not even 1 cm. Slightly more rain in a few days. Los Angeles is rare in that it has a mountain range that bisects the city. The COP 29 negotiations ended today. Experts assess that $1 trillion/year is needed to assist developing countries as they address climate impacts and build a low-carbon infrastructure. The countries agreeed to $300 million. The Trump presidency vows to withdraw from the Paris agreement - again.

2024-11-25 11:19:06

Diepoldpark, Vienna, Austria

I feel a dangerously numb to news of extreme weather. Yesterday, as I read a long and moving article about drought hit farming communities in South Africa, Storm Bert inundated costal towns in the UK. Is numbness what happens when, to quote deputy first minister of Wales Huw Irranca-Davies, the feeling is “here we go again. These traumatic weather incidents are a pattern of our weather”?

2024-11-25 11:57:44

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

Overnight, mountains of plane tree leaves have amassed on sidewalks, against walls and fences. Leaves paper walls, cars and bike sheds. While Storm Bert has resulted in mass-rearrangements of leaves in London, elsewhere in the UK roads have been flooded, and thousands of people were without power. Although relatively minor compared to these other events, the leaf-mountains feel oddly dramatic in today's calm, blue sky weather. Photographs don't do them justice- they are space-invaders, yellow-brown fillers of unused corners and parking spaces, where the westerly wind carried and dropped them.

2024-11-25 18:08:48

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The air bit my fingers as I held onto the metal handle of my turnstile antenna in the pool of darkness that is Hackney Downs at night. A police siren rang out in the distance and a high-speed chase progressed, two police cars tailing another car around two sides of the park. Suddenly a faint neon light appeared to bounce and leap toward me, revealing itself to be a small bulldog wearing a glow-in-the-dark collar. NOAA-15 circled overhead, scanning the outlines of North Africa, Italy and Croatia until I lost the transmission in the blurriness of the Arctic.

2024-11-25 18:09:02

@astro.anderson

South West England, United Kingdom

As storm Bert leaves I take the opportunity to test my mobile rig consisting of electrical wire in a joiner, a short coax, RTL-SDR and a Samsung Galaxy S6. With no rain and a light breeze I was quite happy wandering around and aiming it roughly. I did not expect it to work so well after reading up on the 137MHz antenna variants and the precice calculations, pass filters and leaky coax.

2024-11-26 06:15:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-11-26 07:58:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

After another round of Automatic Ground Station testing late last night, I saw that there would be a NOAA-15 pass around 7:50am today. Carrying the AGS in a tote bag, and my turnstile antenna in another, I found a spot on the largest field in the park, as the sun searched above the horizon toward an array of small cottonball clouds. A man was in the middle of the field before me, pacing up and down with a flip phone in his hand. The grass was damp and water-logged. A few schoolchildren hurrying along the park's main path looked over and pointed in my direction.

2024-11-26 10:37:48

Steve Engelmann

Topanga, California, United States

Captured this satellite pass from a helicopter landing site on a ridge of the Santa. Monica mountains with the San Fernando Valley to the north and the Pacific to the south. From the overlook you could see small patches of light precipitation. I was visited by a curious crow and a grizzled hiker. The hiker had more questions.

2024-11-28 08:44:24

Southern Ocean, somewhere in the vicinity of 170°W, 57°S, Antartica

This is an image taken from the porthole next to my desk on the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer on the day I imaged the weather. Typically the weather decks on the ship are closed during storms like this, but I was allowed outside to take my satellite reading. It was so windy I had to hold onto the antenna and my computer the entire time.

2024-11-28 09:37:09

Steve Engelmann

Venice, California, United States

Went out to the Venice Pier to capture a satellite pass on Thanksgiving. From the image it looks like blue skies for the entire California coast. The pier was busy with sport fishermen. One approached me and asked me if I was looking for aliens. The aliens he was referring to, however, were not extraterrestrials. He was suggesting that immigrants were coming ashore via boats at night. We I explained that the NOAA-19 satellite was harmlessly taking our photo, he suggested we all give it the finger. Sarah Josepha Hale had been campaigning for decades that the US celebrate Thanksgiving. In 1863 she finally convinced Abraham Lincoln to make the last Thursday in November a national holiday. In the midst of the Civil War, it was intended to find common ground and unify the country. Many Americans express anxiety at sitting down with relatives and navigating the inevitable awkward conversations. Sometimes I wonder if I am the "crazy uncle" at the table.

2024-11-29 11:08:30

Sasha Engelmann

Near Ledbury Building, Friary Estate, Southwark, United Kingdom

I found myself at the Southwark Reuse and Recycling Centre shortly before 11am this morning. I have been fascinated by this place for a while- it is a series of gigantic warehouses where one can bring any kind of object, from clothes to appliances to batteries to cleaning equipment to stones and plates to furniture, in any condition, and after putting each item in the right place, the team at the Centre takes care of sorting, testing and repurposing. Clothes and linens are sent to local charities, appliances are tested and re-used if possible, batteries and old phones are recycled and household items of all kinds are either repurposed or ground down into their raw materials to make new things. As I pulled up in a cab with a bunch of stuff from my old flat in the trunk, an older man with long gray hair was manning the entrance, and assessed me and my things before allowing me entry, like a guardian or gnome giving way to a magical place. I took my time sorting my things into different corners of the warehouse, and was amazed at everything else that was there, from phones that looked like they were last used in the 90s, to very nice bags of clothing. In various corners and levels of the cavernous space, I could see staff moving around. As there was a satellite pass shortly after I left the centre, I found a corner of a nearby housing estate- one with at least three tower blocks of dozens of stories each- and propped my laptop on a mossy wall. Later I noticed how odd the concrete infrastructure of the estate was. There were multiple sharply angled concrete features built into the walkway in between the tower blocks. Their shape and star-like structure, and simultaneous brutalist aesthetic, reminded me of some of the socialist monuments I had seen in Croatia and Bosnia while on fieldwork earlier this month. The crisp blue sky opened above the estate, and magnified the concrete edges.

2024-11-30 18:38:57

Waxeneck, Austria

2024-11-30 20:10:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

I've been testing open-weather Automatic Ground Stations all week, and as we are still seeing some unusual patterns and distortions in the images, I brave Hackney Downs long after sunset tonight with AGS 12 and my Yagi-Uda antenna. It is wet and cool but not freezing. Today the pressure on my home weather station (given to me by Soph on my birthday last weekend) reads 1024 hPa, and points toward the symbol at one pole of the barometer that says 'clear bright sky'. This feels at odds with the low-hanging cloud that I feel all around Hackney, but it is true that the weather is stable, and it doesn't feel like a storm is brewing, yet.

2024-12-01 10:07:00

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

In a recent article on 'Clouding knowledge in the Anthropocene', Kate Lewis Hood proposes a "cumulative reading - where cumulative shares an etymological root with cumulus, a type of cloud (OED, 'cumulate') - that shifts from clear skies to fog, between atmospheric transparency and opacity" (2018: 83). Exploring poetry including The Weather by Lisa Robertson and Drift by Caroline Bergvall, Lewis Hood suggests that "such experimental practices enable a shift from asking whether to read or interpret in a certain way to engaging with the weather system of a text: its unpredictable changes and complex patterns" (2018: 185). If today's weather system in London was a text, it might read like this passage from Robertson's The Weather: Our skies are inventions, durations, discoveries, quotas, forgeries, fine and grand. Fine and grand. Fresh and bright. Heavenly and bright. The day pours out space, a light red roominess, bright and fresh. Bright and oft. Bright and fresh. Sparkling and wet. Clamour and tint. (Robertson, 2001: 10)

2024-12-02 10:31:29

Weitao Wang and Sasha Engelmann

Fire escape at the back of Queens Building, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

This weather note was written by Weitao Wang, PhD student in the Geography department at Royal Holloway University, currently doing a fantastic project on the 'The geopower of air and fire: a cultural geography of fiery rituals in China'. “It’s a typical day in the UK, partly cloudy day, a bit windy, and not too cold. As it’s the first time for me to participate, I feel a sort of transit in terms of the ‘body-(satellite)-weather’ relation. At the beginning, I found myself disconnect with the weather (and satellite) because I had no idea of where it would come from and where it would go. However, as time moved on, I felt my body gradually coordinate with the satellite movement in the sky as I listened to the noises in the signal. At the end, the signal slowly faded with noise, which made me wonder whether my direction was still correct and thus feel out of sync again with the satellite". "The weather images produced on the screen reminded me of the previous remote sensing course I had took before, where the date collection process was more detached, abstract and rational because we were just sitting in front of the computer, clicking, and typing. However, today’s outdoor data acquiring seems to invite me to be closer to the real-time weather dynamics.”

2024-12-02 15:32:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-12-03 18:51:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-12-03 21:48:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

London's air is a crisp, cold air today, but the movement of the city keeps me warm. The pressure on my barometer reads over 120 hPa, and the arrow of change points to 'clear' weather. I spend the day in rooms full of students in colleagues, on multiple tube and overground trains, and on busy high streets. Walking from my university campus in Bloomsbury to Tottenham Court Road at sunset, I can almost feel the warm glow of each body as it passes by me in the crowd.

2024-12-04 06:13:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-12-04 07:50:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

2024-12-05 11:32:21

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

The satellite image starts in darkness. Absent of any rays of light from our nearest star, the top left hand corner of the image is almost pure black. I think of NOAA-18 and its near-infrared sensors trying to capture any stray photons as the satellite crosses the Arctic circle and the Nordic countries. The darkness feels vast, like what I imagine the deep space around Earth must feel like. While planting a willow tree named Hildegard at the Stave Hill ecological park in South London on my lunch break yesterday, I dug into deep, black layers of topsoil. Rebeka, keeper of Stave Hill, had inherited a mountain of rubble deposited from war-ruined buildings, as well as imported trash, on which the eco park was established in the 1980s. She asked all of the schoolchildren from nearby schools to bring worms to the hill, and over the decades, the worms got to work. The deep, dark mulch that I dug into yesterday is the intergenerational inheritance and gift of these worms, and the soil that my almost seven year old willow tree will grow into. Hildegard joins around ten other willows of ‘diverse varieties’ planted in a new willow coppice near Russia Dock Woodland and the Globe Pond. As Rebeka explained to me, over the decades, these small twig-like willow trees will sprout from their bases, and their bendy branches will be sustainably harvested to build fences and other infrastructure around Stave Hill, another gift for the future.

2024-12-05 17:52:00

Los Angeles AGS

Los Angeles, United States

2024-12-06 11:18:06

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom

As I look ahead to the final sprint of a writing project, for which I will be submerged in books and my laptop the whole weekend, I am inspired by the collections of geographical thinking and arts practice that I pull out of the towering pile of books on my desk's side-table. I read of 'volcanic polyphonies', 'magmatic languages', 'fluvial hydropoetics', 'sand saltations', 'geo-mimicry' and 'reclaiming energy flows'. I think about the ways in which, across scholarship and creative practice, artists and writers are amplifying the animacies and memories of the elements, from Sotaventine rivers in Mexico, to tidal islands in Scotland, to the humid 'warm fronts' of Southeast Asia. In the satellite image that I capture today from Hackney Downs, I wonder about the repeated patterns and rehearsals of clouds in the North Atlantic, and consider these patterns as another form of air's 'working memory... a memory of energy' (Szerszynski, 2019).

2024-12-06 11:19:00

Prototype Automatic Ground Station 10

The needle on the barometer crept up from its place around 1,009 hPa yesterday afternoon to 1019 today around noon. True to the barometer, the sky opened up into a clear, crisp blue. I was reminded of Gaston Bachelard's writing on the aerial imagination, and his writing of air as 'thin matter' that is especially sensible to poets.

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