Leibniz

Leibniz, like its sister work Descartes, is a single channel video that uses never before seen data of the atmosphere captured by a NASA Earth orbiting satellite from 33,000km above sea-level. Using sophisticated post-production technologies it processes the data so that it presents a coherent picture of a 7 day period of water vapor activity in the upper atmosphere. While Descartes presents a view of the whole planet, Leibniz zooms into the atmosphere above Australia and the Pacific Ocean. It uses this data to explore the concept of the atmosphere as a ‘door’. Typically ‘doors’ are viewed as human inventions. However they precede and transcend the human world. Not only do they appear in the natural world, amongst animals and insects, but they are also found in the physical world of the atmosphere. It is the interrelationship between their human and non-human occurrence that is the focus of Leibniz. It explores this concept of ‘doors’ using the image of water vapour as a door, a door that envelopes and nurtures the planet. Viewers are able to look down on the mass of swirling and complex currents that constitute the immunological mass of particles that protect the Earth.