Presenting a new project by artist duo Tuning Group. Commissioned by Nottingham City Council and University of Nottingham's Digital Nottingham, produced by Broadway's Near Now.
The Weather Station responds to research and data on how the people of Nottingham feel about climate change. Using a process called sentiment analysis, artist duo Tuning Group translated data collected by the Hello Nottingham project into a blueprint map illustration, a sound piece, and an installation—using the weather as a way of discussing our relationship with climate.
First displayed at the Nottingham Green Festival in the summer of 2023, during a period of intense heatwaves, the project includes illustrated deckchairs, a hanging textile artwork, and printed map-fans, providing climate-warming infrastructure. An accompanying weather report sound piece articulates the project's findings in the style of the shipping forecast.
The map as a textile artwork presented on deckchairs at Nottingham Green Festival 2023. Creating a space for conversations about Climate Change.
The map conveys the spectrum of feelings expressed by people in Nottingham over the past year—positive as living, negative as extractive, and the somewhere-in-between as complex and entangled.
Centred around Nottingham's Arboretum public park, four celebrated greenspaces are represented in an emblematic form, surrounded by neighbouring city landscapes, with the Trent connecting the mirrored seas.
A blueprint map illustration representing meaningful local greenspaces and data collected through the Hello Nottingham project.
An interactive version of the artwork, making use of capacitive touch sensing technology, was produced in collaboration with artist Graham Elstone.
The project is ongoing and iterative. Check back soon for updates.
About the project
University of Nottingham's Digital Nottingham collaborated with Nottingham City Council in creating a year-long conversation with the city about the Carbon Neutral agenda.
Tuning Group were commissioned to make a visual and interactive response to data collected through Hello Nottingham, a project which lets you take part in playful and thought-provoking conversations about climate change with objects and places around the city.
These conversations are supported by the use of an interactive playful city-wide layer of talking street furniture objects facilitated by experienced providers Hello Lamp Post.
An example of the types of data collected and presented by the Hello Nottingham project.
About Tuning Group
Tuning Group are a social arts collective set up by Near Now Studio member Mo Langmuir and Samuel Collins.
With a focus on shared space and the collective social experience, they work towards the disruption and expansion of existing Western paradigms, offering to rethink human-non-human relationships and envisage new models for collective storytelling with an emphasis on place.
Weather Report sound piece produced with Shō Murayama.