Eleni-Ira Panourgia

Description

Tropical Depression (2025) by Alexander Walmsley is a 3-channel video installation that follows the life and death of 21 cyclones that took place in the southern Hemisphere during the 2023 to 2024 cyclone season. Combining found footage and text fragments with recorded footage of the storms within Microsoft Flight Simulator - a videogame where weather is visualised in realtime using meteorological data - the film explores the aesthetic implications of documentary filmmaking that relies on data-generated rather than lens-based imagery, and the depiction of violent weather events as data-driven climate models. Sonic atmospheres created by Eleni-Ira Panourgia using processed electroacoustic material, field recordings and sound synthesis seek to highlight an emotional connection with the weather data and foster an acoustic relationship to extreme climate phenomena. Rich textures and sustained layers highlight the intensities of changing data patterns proposing an audio-visual interplay of extreme weather and the dramatic impact of the phenomena. 

Tropical Depression received the Fonds für Forschung und Transfer funding and the Preis für künstlerische Forschung from Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.