Anyone who has attended an online call has at some point talked about the weather. What happens between the crust of the Earth and the void above seems mutable enough to be a staple conversation starter across cultures.

But if we pay attention, we soon find how little we know about the whims of our atmosphere or the currents in the sea, and how small our vocabulary is when it comes to naming a type of cloud or a phase of the moon.

With Weather Machine, we created a series of installations and digital experiences that stem from our own curiosity for these phenomena. Using interaction as a way to learn and immersion as a way to feel, both become ways to understand weather in a more embodied way.

Weather forecasts are often visualized through abstract satellite views, while our own perception of the three-dimensionality of the moon, the sun, or the behavior of currents is difficult to grasp due to their scale.

Immersed in this scientific field, we imagined a machine that could react to different weather inputs and showcase each parameter on its own. A section of atmosphere that can be viewed from all sides, part education, part installation.

Pixels meet space.

We partnered with our friends at MaHalla (a special venue in Berlin) and LedPulse to bring Weather Machine to the world's most advanced volumetric LED display.

With a high density of LEDs and a custom control system, the Dragon O by LedPulse allowed us to bring the sky into the halls of MaHalla: a first step towards a fully choreographed experience where guests can influence a weather simulator and understand the impact of pressure, temperature shifts, and other variables in common weather phenomena.

Sun, moon, magnetic fields and tides.

Solar energy heats the atmosphere, causing it to expand and increasing drag on satellites, which can interrupt GPS and satellite communications and impact data acquisition for weather forecasting. In our choreography, the sun sets the pace of time and initiates the story, suspending communications and claiming center stage with patterns of interference and overflowing warmth.

The moon is represented in a pendular motion, an allusion to its influence on tides and its role in marking time across longer stretches.

Cloud formations and precipitation.

To honor the richness and complexity of clouds, we created an interactive simulation system that renders them in higher fidelity and as true to their physics as a live experience allows for.

A particle system is mapped onto a voxel grid and parameters like altitude, temperature, pressure, and wind, morph cloud formations into their different archetypes.

Atmospheric pressure, jet streams, and storms.

A more mysterious domain is atmospheric pressure and streams. These are inherently invisible phenomena, which makes them compelling to visualize.

Wind and storms take the form of particles, moving through the volumetric display, with color assigned to their acceleration.

For atmospheric pressure and jet streams, we take cues from the colors commonly assigned to air masses and present them spatially. This allows viewers to see how a jet stream resembles a global subway system, where warm air envelops cold air and moves it from continent to continent in a consistent direction.

Parts of the Weather Machine visual experiments can be accessed and interacted with live in the web experiences on this page. For inquiries and collaborations, reach out to info@gentle.systems.

Useful links to explore live weather data and visualization of climate phenomena: