AI and Environment: Environmental Data and Sensing: Art Methods and Design Practices

This talk addresses the intersection of art and design methods with environmental data. Drawing on recent artistic examples (including the Weather Engines exhibition, 2022) and some intersections with recent work in architecture and design, I address some ways of framing the materiality of environmental data in relation to certain sites, histories, and spatial contexts of emergence. The talk pays specific attention to ideas that are emerging in the project Design and Aesthetics for Environmental Data (AUFF, 2022-2024) which also guides some emerging work presented in this talk. In this manner, I propose elements for a research agenda of environmental data: one that addresses environmental data in landscapes, situations, archives, and other material contexts while, in a recursive manner, defining those sites, situations, landscapes, across different scales. In addition, the talk is organised in dialogue with the artist duo Matterlurgy whose work was exhibited at the Weather Engines show and whose film Hydromancy will be screened as part of the dialogue.