Blowing in the Wind

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David Bowen, “tele-present wind,” 2007

86 tansy stalks, accelerometer, mechanical x/y tilting devices, computers, prosthetic connectors and streamed real-time data, installation view

We seldom give wind a passing thought. We take it for granted. Winds, on view at the New Media Gallery in Greater Vancouver until Sept. 29, features four international artists who have turned this omnipresent element into clever and sophisticated work. 

At first glance, David Bowen’s tele-present wind looks like a residential garden. To a certain extent, it is. Servos, automatic feedback devices, are attached to dried plant stalks that fluctuate with real time gusts from Lake Superior. 

Onshore sensors measure wind speed and direction and transmit the information to a satellite. It’s downlinked to the New Westminster gallery a mere five seconds later. 

Thus, viewers are exposed to conditions near Bowen’s home in Duluth, Minnesota,  half a continent away. The process makes it possible to simultaneously share the experience with multiple locations anywhere in the world.

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Nathalie Miebach, “Hurricane Noël III,” 2015

mixed-media sculpture, 15” x 15"

American artist Nathalie Miebach also works with data and has used meteorological records to create both a physical and an aural interpretation of a 2007 storm that battered America’s eastern seaboard. 

Hurricane Noël III is a three-dimensional sculpture formed by plotting variables such as wind speed, temperature and barometric pressure. 

She used the same analytical process to create a musical score called Hurricane Noël. Visitors can listen with headphones to two interpretations of different tempo and tone, representing varying wind conditions.

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Spencer Finch, “2 hours, 2 minutes, 2 seconds (Wind at Walden Pond, March 12, 2007),” 2007

44 industrial fans in wooden frames and programmed hard-drives, installation view

Spencer Finch acknowledges the idyllic sensibilities of Henry David Thoreau with his installation, 2 Hours, 2 Minutes, 2 Seconds (Wind at Walden Pond, March 12, 2007). But he toys with them too. 

Finch measured the wind at Walden Pond in 2007, hence the title, and has replicated those conditions ironically and, in my mind, irreverently through a bank of 44 identical industrial fans. 

He asks us to imagine ourselves at Walden Pond, but the noisy fans are anything but serene. 

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Chris Welsby, “Wind Vane,” 1972

two-channel video from 16mm film, wooden wind vane and original 16mm Bolex camera and wooden tripod, installation view

Wind Vane, from British artist Chris Welsby, is a dual-screen, eight-minute loop of London’s Hampstead Heath recorded by two 16mm cameras placed 15 yards apart. 

After attaching homemade weather vanes to his cameras and placing them on tripods, Welsby walked away, leaving them to pan left and right according to wind direction and speed. 

In this case, nature did the work, a constant theme in this exhibition. Wind, whether tied to a camera, a computer or a satellite, is the common medium and the ways these artists have dealt with its energy gives the show power and relevance. ■ 

Winds is on view at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster, B.C., from June 22 to Sept. 29, 2019.

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