We understand our changing environment through both the use of our senses in observation, and scientific data that is compiled over time. While data might include simple observational material, to be truly useful in addressing the larger issues of climate change data must be combined with factors that require rigorous scientific instruments and analysis. In this series, we go beyond simple graphing of these variables to create enticing artworks that interweave the best practices of expressionist (techspressionist) art and scientific data. We do this to combine variables in different ways, so that viewer can more intuitively feel the complexity of our world. Our imagery is both sensual and informative, enticing both scientists, visual thinkers, and the general public to contemplate how an environment changes over the course of a single year, from February 2022 to February 2023. It is constructed from the sampling of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, an important Marine estuary that is
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Nutrients and Heat
Mapping the elements of phosphate and nitrite + nitrate presented a new challenge. These nutrients had to be interwoven, each with distinct colors and textures, to reveal their curves rise and fall through the year, while being strikingly similar for much of winter. An abundance of playfully placed plankton, including some that are hand-drawn, reminds the viewer of the living organisms inhabiting this marine environment. ↩ Images from Data
Plankton Abundance, Silicate, Salinity, and Temperature
In this image we see the fluctuation in how many plankton are in the water throughout the year. The image includes an overlay of the data graph with temperature and the concentration of the essential nutrient silicate to add another dimension, and it includes composites of photographs of plankton taken with a scanning electron microscope. Abundances changes substantially through the year, and in the final weeks the quantity of plankton was so great that the number continues above and beyond the graph. . ↩ Images from Data
Salinity, Chlorophyll, Temperature, State II
In this Techspressionist image, combining the elements of chlorophyll, salinity, and temperature, the data is layered. In true expressionist fashion, the red cubes of salt in the lower front call to the reds at the peak of the temperature curve, and cube forms call to the salt in the salinity layer. The soft green ripples of chlorophyll clearly continue throughout the season. The vital marine life of plankton diatom chains hang above it all, as in the ocean they form the basis of all production and food webs. ↩ Images from Data
Salinity, Chlorophyll, Temperature, State I
In this iteration the frame from the original graph reveals the months of the year and points on the Y axis. More readable to scientists as data mapping, the frame and color choices put the chlorophyll in a more prominent position, asking the viewer to imagine that the temperature and salinity graphs continue behind the rising chlorophyll of winter. This is a true reflection of the environmental dynamics, where temperature and salinity constrain which organisms can survive at those conditions. ↩ Images from Data