The Aerographer


The Aerographer maps the air to raise fragile grounds. In times of ubiquitous technological mediation and accelerated uncertainty, borders among territories and boundaries among bodies do not endure nor cease to evaporate. What is it like to live in airlike times, when everything is transparent, and no ground lingers? The Aerographer is both a system and an individual, trapped on groundless air, seeking to sustain a place inside of the clouds.

The installation reacts to subtle changes of airflow within a room. Conceived to be mounted temporarily and through serendipity, the installation can adapt to different spaces and situations modularly. Each module contains a fixed center part, and one to three fixed probing parts. Each probing part works as a disassembled hot-wire anemometer, grasping constantly micro changes of temperature between itself and the center to measure airspeed. In between them, a node travels by converting the measured airspeed difference into mechanical linear motion, which shifts retractable bands that can be connected to other nodes. A map thus unfolds, from a tree-like structure of fixed parts, to a networked kinetic map of differential measurements in motion.

The project speculates on the gaseous state of matter as Zeitgeist. It investigates how the contemporary digital utopias of network and information are shifting towards the turbulent tensions between materiality and boundaries, orientation and borders, homogeneity and transparency. The work explores the chaotic behaviour of the air for unfolding an unstable tangible map of a place, and deals spatially with the uncertainty that arises from a space of shifting bounds.