Pacific Ocean: Japan

Pacific Ocean: Japan  

This project consists in creating a visualization of unusual natural phenomena like tsunami, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, etc. It employs real data (e.g. satellite images, tide measurements) from hazardous events that cannot be experienced normally. People normally remember these events only by images, video or text from the mass media, and have preconceptions in mind about them: sadness, fear, pain, and so forth. What if we see these events from a different point of view? It could be meaningful to perceive these occurrences as special and unique manifestations of natural processes, which we could regard as beautiful or marvelous moments that people wish to experience in some way. This project investigates different interpretations of those events by creating new physical forms directly from the real data, with the help of digital fabrication technologies.

During the Generator.x 3.0 workshop, I explored recent DART monitoring data (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis, from NOAA) obtained from tsunamis that occurred across the Pacific Ocean. In the work for the iMal exhibition, I especially visualize and compare the data before, during and after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan in March 11, 2011.

Thanks to Andres Colubri