Bidston Observatory, Liverpool, UK
2020-02-07
Before its most recent iteration as a site of Artistic Research,
Bidston Observatory housed the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). A
large part of the work which took place in the building was related to
tidal prediction – speculating on what height the tide would be in any
given place, at a given moment, depending on different natural and human
influenced factors. In the second half of the 19th century tidal
prediction was done through harmonic analysis, studying the graphical
output of tidal prediction machines. Those early analog computers
produced a wave-like form that, when output in a jagged way, had to be
rubbed out and drawn in again by hand. There was even a name for this
human job in assistance to the computation process: the
‘smoother’.
As computational models expand and deepen with ever-increasing data
sets, and the aesthetics of prediction rush their transformations from
wavy lines on a paper page, to hyper-real 3D renderings, we’d like to
pause for a moment to look at the histories of oceanographic
measurement, computation and visualisation. By observing together the
devices and techniques dedicated to these tasks, Modelling Waves and
Swerves will inquire into what is the context of this data-practice, and
what are the ‘smoothing’ operations that characterize the work of
today’s oceanographers.
