Anemograms- 2009

Anemogram with Stencil, Summer 2009

Anemogram with Paint, Summer 2009

Anemographical Video

Anemometry 1 from Mark Warren on Vimeo.

Me and the Gang

A Question of Harmony

(for scale comparison)

This monstrosity is something I built during Leddelle Moe's class, "Armatures and Skins". The pictures above show two anemographs connected by a funnel form which is covered in plastic. I am curious about the relationship between the drawings produced by two anemographs under (nearly) identical wind stimulus. I am curious: will the drawings be harmonious? The two anemographs are similar in design, but vastly different in scale. I need to work a little more on this piece, but it should be completed in the near future, hopefully in time for the Core show in October.

Database of Anemographical Images, Pt. 3

Stencils and Anemography

A New Approach

Final Piece- Made using a two fan oscillation system with small anemograph(Little Brother), stencils, and paint. Started almost a year ago in Chapel Hill.

Detail

Detail

Detail

Database of Anemographical Images, Pt. 2

Database of Anemograms, Pt.1

A selection of 5 details from Anemograms made during the past year. This is part of an ongoing project to catalog and dissect the visual information generated by the interaction between the wind and the anemograph system (Currently machine #5 and #6).

Snowfall and Wolf Thoughts

It snowed all last night. As I sat in my bed, I couldnot stop worrying about the anemographs. I needn't have worried though, the anemograms produced were beautiful, the snow was so dry it did not blur any of the lines although each piece of paper was under at least 3 inches of snow.


I listened to the wind and stared at my wolf tapestry above my bed.

Anemography

What is anemography? Anemos is the ancient greek word for wind. Above is a painting of what William-Adolphe Bouguereau thought might have happened when the god of the west wind, Zephyrus, met the goddess Chloris. Anemography is the practice of extracting drawings from the wind. To do this I have made simple machines that react to changes in the wind and produce drawings. This is what they look like. I made this pair in the Spring of 2008 when I came to Penland to take Jon Brook's  class called "Ideas Drawn from Nature".  I took the title literally.


These machines are modeled after two of my favorite things, windmills and dinosaurs. Specifically pterosaurs (aka pterodactyls). Please note the example below.

Why collect drawings made by the wind? When I was about 7 years old, I woke one night with the suspicion that beneath the sheen of order we perceive in everyday life, the universe might in fact be nothing more than a random jumble of systems. I began to look everywhere for a harmony that never appeared. Since then I have resigned myself to the fact that randomness itself is beautiful. In some small way, these machines isolate some of this randomness into a tangible artifact. I call these drawings anemograms.



They normally look really cool like this, but one time I got the message "STOP>THE WIND HAS NOTHING TO TELL YOU> MORTAL BEWARE OUR WRATH" scrawled in an anemogram.