Weather Patterns - A light installation and research project that visually demonstrates the local changing weather patterns

Weather Patterns is a permanent public light installation artwork commissioned by the City of York Council for York Art Gallery. It utilizes advanced display technologies, allowing the building to communicate the changing weather cycles surrounding the Gallery.
The installation consists of Units which contain printed electro-luminescence (EL) panels sandwiched between toughened glass. A computer reads data from a dedicated weather station on site and uses this information to animate the printed EL pattern.
The work is significant in as much as this is the first large scale, outdoor, architectural application of printed electro-luminescent technology ever seen. It involves complex research into the use of traditional pattern language in combination with low-resolution dot matrix displays to convey environmental information. In my design for Weather Patterns I reworked the classic dot-matrix, to create a spiral based one capable of reproducing animated movement, rotation and growth patterns without the pixelated aesthetic of most low-resolution displays. Similar to how one learns to read the face of a clock the animated pattern language we developed for the installation can be learnt over time.
Although recently there has been much research into the field of Ambient Displays and Tangible Media, as seen at MIT in the Tangible Media department, Weather Patterns goes beyond the majority of this research by meeting the challenges of fabricating a large scale, permanent public piece of work.
Within the context of climate change we wanted the installation to act as a tool that allows people to experience changes in our weather and to rethink their relationship with a very fragile and highly interconnected atmosphere.
The installation has been recreated and presented at the following exhibitions:
Illumine, FOAM, Brussels (December 2005)

‘New British Design’ - curated by Droog Design supported by the British Council (April 2006)Madrid (Efimera01, June 2007)