Publishes,
Atmography, Sophie Green
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‘Atmosphere seems to occupy one of the classic localities of tensions between matter and the immaterial, the practical and the ideal, and the subject and object.’ (1)
Atmospheric shifts - in pressure, temperature and light - exist around us continuously, they fill the in-between spaces. Air is a highly empathetic form, it has substance, volume and a density, but it bends and moulds around concrete matter; it is ever-present but rarely obtrusive.
Air enters and withdraws from the body, a relentless cycle that breaks down the distinction between internal and external territories. Breath spans the divide between body and environment - they become part of one another. ‘Tidal Volume’, a plinth topped with a shallow depression that accommodates 500ml of air - the same volume as a single resting breath.
Temperature influences air movement; air is reactive. ‘Diffuse’ interacts with the atmosphere by subtly influencing air pressure and circulation. A panel heater leans against a wall emitting a glow of rising warmth, intangibly impacting local air currents. Its effects can be felt, but not seen. The work extends into the surrounding airspace, its perimeters are indefinite.
The sky’s tonal shifts correlate with the rotation of the Earth. ‘Surface’ occupies the physical threshold between the environment at large, and a constructed architectural space. Semi translucent film covers the gallery windows, providing just enough opacity to serve as a rear projection screen for the ambient daylight.
There are indistinct boundaries between tangible and intangible forms; liquids evaporate and re-condense, they fluctuate between visible and invisible states. In ‘Nephologies’, vapour extracted from the atmosphere is presented in a liquid state. Left in an open tank, it will gradually become re-absorbed into the airspace.
- Bille, Mikkel; Bjerregaard, Peter; Flohr Sorensen, Tim. Staging Atmospheres; Materiality, Culture and the Texture of the In-between.