A phalanx of buoys ranges across a long
sliver of the Atlantic Ocean, outriders to
the fore, troops fanned behind. In the
foreground is a mysterious carapace, plates
of armour, straps and ropes - a defence
levelled against the advancing barrage.
In the distance, below the calm, singular,
unified sky, on the rolling horizon, you
might almost take the low clouds for ice,
fantasising some dramatic climatic event
to merit this armoury.
This solitary buoy, seen from many angles,
is two days' sailing from land and
unaccustomed to visitors and portraitists.
K1 is one of eleven, moored in the waters
round these islands after the unexpected
storm of October 1987. The Marine
Automatic Weather Station network
operates as an early warning system to
more accurately anticipate such weather.
Each buoy is an autonomous weather
station measuring air pressure, air and sea
temperature, humidity, wind speed and
direction, and wave height and frequency.
Every hour, day and night, K1 reports its
observation from sea area Sole. As Susan
Gamble and Michael Wenyon were
photographing it, from an encircling
dinghy, K1 was making and transmitting
its representations of its environment,
including in turn the subtle traces of
their presence. We encounter vestiges
of information from the buoy everyday:
absorbed in the morning weather bulletins,
at work in the poetry of the night-time
shipping forecast, broadcast into our homes
and out to sea.
Made with an automated digital camera
the kaleidoscopic tableau invokes primitive
cinema: the animation of a flick book or
zoetrope. Its resemblance to filmstrip and
panoramic photography belies the
complexity of its structure. Shot not from
a single rotating point but an elliptical path,
looking inwards, it is a series of spatial
overlappings, reiterations and temporal
discontinuities. The vista is more than 360
degrees and, as well as the buoy, it records
where the dinghy has just been, on the
other side, so that the camera constantly
points across its own lines of sight.
The helm and sides of the dinghy are
choppy evidence of the presence of the
artists, pitched and pulled by the current.
This band of visual fragmentation and
repetition so near to us contrasts with the
continuity of the sky. It is, effectively, a
simple panorama, unbroken by the relatively
small movement of the camera off centre
because the clouds are so far away. The
single ship, like the sky, persuades us of the
unity of the image. It invites us to approach
Automated Observations as not primitive but
contemporary cinema: to speculate romance,
disaster, storm, deluge and redemption.
In the digital era fundamentally physical
problems, such as recording climate details
in remote places, powerfully evoke the
persistence and insistence of the material
world. Simultaneously scientific apparatus
exerts considerable aesthetic appeal and we
find contemporary beauty in the technology
that observes nature as much as in nature
itself. This sliver of ocean is mounted on a
white wall beside a walkway through the
Met Office Street and opposite a small
rectilinear indoor stream. This instrument
of defence against the most violent of
weather, set in the expanse of the Atlantic,
is viewed whilst listening to the tinkle and
trickle of water.
Shirley MacWilliam
sliver of the Atlantic Ocean, outriders to
the fore, troops fanned behind. In the
foreground is a mysterious carapace, plates
of armour, straps and ropes - a defence
levelled against the advancing barrage.
In the distance, below the calm, singular,
unified sky, on the rolling horizon, you
might almost take the low clouds for ice,
fantasising some dramatic climatic event
to merit this armoury.
This solitary buoy, seen from many angles,
is two days' sailing from land and
unaccustomed to visitors and portraitists.
K1 is one of eleven, moored in the waters
round these islands after the unexpected
storm of October 1987. The Marine
Automatic Weather Station network
operates as an early warning system to
more accurately anticipate such weather.
Each buoy is an autonomous weather
station measuring air pressure, air and sea
temperature, humidity, wind speed and
direction, and wave height and frequency.
Every hour, day and night, K1 reports its
observation from sea area Sole. As Susan
Gamble and Michael Wenyon were
photographing it, from an encircling
dinghy, K1 was making and transmitting
its representations of its environment,
including in turn the subtle traces of
their presence. We encounter vestiges
of information from the buoy everyday:
absorbed in the morning weather bulletins,
at work in the poetry of the night-time
shipping forecast, broadcast into our homes
and out to sea.
Made with an automated digital camera
the kaleidoscopic tableau invokes primitive
cinema: the animation of a flick book or
zoetrope. Its resemblance to filmstrip and
panoramic photography belies the
complexity of its structure. Shot not from
a single rotating point but an elliptical path,
looking inwards, it is a series of spatial
overlappings, reiterations and temporal
discontinuities. The vista is more than 360
degrees and, as well as the buoy, it records
where the dinghy has just been, on the
other side, so that the camera constantly
points across its own lines of sight.
The helm and sides of the dinghy are
choppy evidence of the presence of the
artists, pitched and pulled by the current.
This band of visual fragmentation and
repetition so near to us contrasts with the
continuity of the sky. It is, effectively, a
simple panorama, unbroken by the relatively
small movement of the camera off centre
because the clouds are so far away. The
single ship, like the sky, persuades us of the
unity of the image. It invites us to approach
Automated Observations as not primitive but
contemporary cinema: to speculate romance,
disaster, storm, deluge and redemption.
In the digital era fundamentally physical
problems, such as recording climate details
in remote places, powerfully evoke the
persistence and insistence of the material
world. Simultaneously scientific apparatus
exerts considerable aesthetic appeal and we
find contemporary beauty in the technology
that observes nature as much as in nature
itself. This sliver of ocean is mounted on a
white wall beside a walkway through the
Met Office Street and opposite a small
rectilinear indoor stream. This instrument
of defence against the most violent of
weather, set in the expanse of the Atlantic,
is viewed whilst listening to the tinkle and
trickle of water.
Shirley MacWilliam