When I image the earth, I imagine another

The book, co-created by open-weather and Rectangle, is an archive of the project series, When I image the earth, I imagine another, and a set of lenses on the materials that compose it. What would it mean to collectively image, and in doing so, reimagine the planet? To see its details and patterns from many situated positions? If we could each take a photo of our home from space, could we build a patchwork, an impossible view, another whole earth?

On the first day of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, a network of people operating DIY satellite ground stations around the world captured a collective snapshot of the earth and its weather systems: a ‘nowcast’ for an undecided future. Tuning into transmissions from three National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites orbiting 800 km above Earth’s surface, members of the network collected imagery and submitted field notes from their different locations. Combined, these contributions create a fractal image of the earth: a record of weather at different scales in which alternative patterns and relations emerge.

The book is free to read with an account on Library Stack.