Hundreds of thousands of pinpricks and hundreds of meters of tangled paper strips will accumulate over time to resemble a large amorphous cloud-like form.
The weightless network of delicate perforated paper strips is paradoxically composed of dense ecological memory, millennia of carbon, organic matter, and environmental history.
The Boggy Gassy Cloud is formed via a process of accumulation and erasure. The empty holes render the data void – illegible and therefore useless, referencing the often inaccessible and impenetrable nature of unprocessed scientific data.
The strips of paper resemble discarded off-cuts, referencing data degradation, misinterpretation and instability.
The Boggy Gassy Cloud materialises the data; when handled, thrown, or suspended in the air, it gives shape to otherwise abstract information, it becomes momentarily active lively matter.
The durational project makes time visible in ways that challenge anthropocentric narratives. It is not just about human endurance—it’s about more-than-human rhythms, ecological time, and data as an active lively material participant.
Making the Boggy Gassy Cloud in the studio..
I took the Boggy Cloud (in progress) to throw in the air above the degraded peatland adjacent to the GGR- Peat research site at Pwllpeiran Upland Research Centre, Cambrian Mountains. A male Cuckoo’s call resounding over the peatland made the experience even more special. The cloud needs to be at least 4 times bigger, so 4 months of data to have the impact I want. This cloud as it is contains approx. 249,984 data points (pin pricks) so to get to 999,936 I have my work cut out..
Another step closer to the definitive image – We carried a trampoline up to the high bog so I could fly with the boggy data cloud. The data critter and I both became airborne — hovering over the ancient wet boggy land, our bodies entangled, becoming kin.
It was very windy, so I didn’t dare let go of the cloud. Its form collapsed, more squashed than cloud-like. But I love the shapes my body made – my limbs stretched, and bare toes appearing to skim the peaty pools below.
I need a much bigger data cloud (a few more months of pricking still to go), a clear blue sky dotted with small, fluffy cumulus humilis, no wind, and the strength and skill to leap higher.
And for my amazing Ash to catch the perfect moment – when the cloud looks like a cloud, freed from my grasp but still in relation to me. Maybe one of its tentacular strips just grazing my fingertip.
