The Artistic Side of Earth Data

In this episode of The Aha! Moment, host David Hermanovitch sits down with Sarah Nance, Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice at Binghamton University's Department of Art and Design, to explore the intersection of scientific data and artistic expression. Sarah shares how she transformed raw environmental data into stunning works of art — from stitch maps derived from ice quake events in glaciers, to musical compositions built from sea level measurements. Along the way, she discusses how data and creativity don't have to live on opposite sides of the brain, and that art might just be one of our most powerful tools for understanding a changing planet.

Transcript

David: I'm David Hermanovitch and this is The Aha! Moment presented by Binghamton University.

Now, if I said the phrase "art made from data", most people would scratch their heads because that can kind of be a confusing concept, but today we're talking to someone here at the university who meshes those two things together.

Sarah Nance is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice at the Binghamton University Department of Art and Design. Now, she makes artwork from data found in nature. Today, we're focusing on two mediums in particular: stitching maps created by using ice quake events and music created with sea level data.

Now Sarah, thank you for taking the time to stop on by.

Sarah: Of course., thanks for having me.

D: So Sarah, when I found out about your work one immediate thing came to mind. It's these two competing ideas. On one hand you have hard data which is very, you know, usually you think of analytics and logistics and things that are very, you know, left brain analytical thinking and then things that are, you have artwork which is, more creative and free flowing and sort of coming from the brain of somebody. It's kind of that right brain thinking, so to speak. But how do you view the relationship between those two things for you in your artwork?

S: To me, it feels really like quite a natural connection and I think part of that is because of the media that I work in. So, today we're talking about the knitting stitch maps and vocal data. And, I'm a classically trained vocalist and so I think in terms of, whole steps and half steps and key signatures and this very sort of regulated way of moving from one tone to another. And in knitting, there are also very kind of strict sets of rules of the kind of stitch that you do that will be able to hold the next stitch and the patterns themselves tend to look like data sets. So I think in part it's, it's because, again, it really just kind of, the media that I work in really lends itself to working with another regulated sort of regular set of information.

D: And with artwork there, there are, you know, it's very creative, but there are sort of rules, at least in terms of technique in the basics to keep in mind when making artwork, I'm sure. But what I want to talk about today, your first work, I want to talk about today, rather. It's called "Points of Rupture". So, you know, with using stitch maps to show ice quake data. It's a very interesting connection between the two. What I want to know is, first of all, what led you to want to use ice quake data in your art? And also what led you to choosing stitch maps as the medium of which you're going to be visualizing this data?

S: I was thinking about something that I call archived landscapes. So looking at the different iterations that a landscape has gone through over time. I'm from a place called Cresco, Iowa, which is very close by, to Decorah, Iowa where a subsurface meteor crater was found, a little over ten years ago. It's not visible at all from the surface, but it's this depression, underground. And so I, I've been interested in places like this or places where I find fossils so I know that there used to be an ocean in that, in that landscape, for example.

And I create work that, I think of as another surface layer to kind of put in that landscape that then calls attention to the, to the fact that that landscape has been through a lot of different changes. And so that was the thinking behind working with these ice quakes, because they're capturing this moment, that one landscape becomes another through this event of the quake. And the ice quakes themselves are caused by things like, pooling meltwater and so it's connected back to this discussion of climate change, which also comes through my work a lot.

And most of my background as an artist is in fiber, so things like weaving, textile printing, knitting, stitching, et cetera and I hadn't worked with knitting yet other than to make projects for myself. And I had discovered this, tool online that allows you to put in a set of knitting instructions, and instead of spitting out a regular kind of boxed grid of those symbols, it lays out the symbols in the way that the stitches will actually fall when you make the fabric. And so you get a lot more curves and shapes happening just from the grid itself. And so I was really interested in the possibility of capturing almost the shape of that quake in the form of these knitting patterns.

D: And for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you should be able to see some of the artwork on the screen here. But what I want to know, is how do you, as an artist or in conjunction with the software, determine what stitch patterns go where when trying to make artwork from this data? How does, like, what bits of data means what stitch patterns on the, on the work there?

S: So knitting instructions essentially look like lines of code anyways. And so the, they get abbreviated to things like K2 which means knit two stitches, YO4 which means yarn over four. It's a way of adding more stitches to a row. And so it's not a particularly precise data translation. I was looking at this seismograph of the ice quake, and when it had, a large spike upwards, I would, I sort of set these lines to determine how many stitches would be added in that moment, or how many stitches would be, taken away if, you know, when the line sort of draws back down. So I was, I guess you could say loosely translating this data into, these stitch maps, but what was interesting to me is it was still very effective in capturing the activity of the quake. So the first, let's say, ten rows or something of stitching end up looking very even. It looks like a regular fabric. And then the moment that I entered the first line of the the biggest activity of the quake, the entire shape of the pattern changed. It just kind of scrunched up the whole fabric. And then it starts to kind of lose its form more and more over time because just like a glacier can't hold its form in an ice quake, this knitted structure can't hold its form. Once you start putting in these really disruptive, instructions.

D: Is this anything with these stitch maps where you've you've tried to actually knit what the stitch map says to or is that basically impossible?

S: I have tried and and some parts of it will hold together. Some parts of it really just can't hold a form. It's something I'm still playing with. I'm interested in creating sculptural work that is based on these patterns. I just haven't found the right material to do it in.

D: And with these stitch maps, you know, you're making these stitch maps of a geological event and geological events that continually happen. What would you say is the overall message or the overall concept that you're hoping that people who are viewing this, your artwork take away from it and, and sort of draw from it?

S: I think it is less about a specific message that I'm getting across and more about a method of translation that I think offers a different way to access information like a data set that can feel a bit alienating or hard to relate to when something like a textile, you know, we're in contact with textiles almost 100% of the time, just through wearing clothing. And so there are things that are very familiar to us. They're close to the body. A lot of the time. And so I think there's something that can be more familiar about seeing that information in a new, in a new form.

D: And with large data sets like this, I know, for the for the average person and I would include myself in that could be kind of intimidating to look at all these numbers and, and, and, you know, different things. You don't know what they mean. And it can be difficult to derive meaning from that, but having artwork like this is just another way to visualize that data in a way that might be a little bit more palatable for someone who, might not necessarily be all that data-savvy. So it's just another way of looking at, important information.

But I want to pivot now to the tidal gauge arias you did. You looked at tidal levels and sea levels from a couple of different locations in the world, and you actually took that information and turned it into music. Which, yeah, I'd love to learn more about how you did that.

S: Sure. Quite similar, actually, to translating this cryoseismic or ice quake data into the knitting structure, although a bit more precise. So I found the longest continuous range of tidal gauge data that I could find openly published and it happened to be from a tidal gauge in the Bay of Marseilles, France and the span, I believe, is 1884 to 2014, thereabouts. So about 130 years of this tide level data. And, I was looking at the yearly average tide level that this gauge had recorded. And so I knew I had this I could see I had this range of data. This was the lowest recorded. This was the highest recorded. And I know the range of my voice. And so I kind of pushed and pulled both of those ranges until they matched up. So just meaning, kind of, you know, pulled or shrunk that data set until I could say, like, okay, if the number falls within this range, that's going to be an A flat. The number is in this range, that'll be a C sharp or, you know, whatever the case may be. And so the the resulting piece is very atonal, but I would say it's a fairly close depiction of what's happening in that tide gauge.

[Music from “Marseilles Tidal Gauge Aria” by Sarah Nance]

D: So the lyrics we just heard in the "Marseilles Tidal Gauge Aria" were taken from a book by Rasu Yong-Tugen called "Songs from the Black Moon". Why did you choose those specific lyrics for this aria?

S: So I sing this piece in an operatic style, which is a style that really magnifies human emotion, and I often find numerical data to be pretty dispassionate. And so I, you know, was interested in that, that kind of combination here. And the poem that I chose is, I think pretty heavily emotional. There's a lot of interesting imagery happening. At one point, she's talking about how the forest is lit on fire to offer, like, a better chance to see because it's such a dark, eternal night and then the ravens fly up and blot out the stars. And for me, that was a really poignant moment of thinking about the things that we do in moments of catastrophe to find a bit of relief that can sometimes lead to an even greater catastrophe. So, like in this eternal night, setting fire to the forest just to see a little bit better, I think a, you know, maybe, in some ways an understandable action of just trying to get some relief, but of course, ending up causing more, more harm.

D: And as you listen to the music, it's it's kind of haunting, almost the tone of the, of the music in that kind of where my mind goes with that is it sort of draws a connection to climate change and what the effects of that have been. You know, sea levels being one of the the indicators that we've used for a while to talk about climate change and to frame that discussion, how do you how do you view these arias as a way of not just taking a look at where, see, you know, for instance, where the sea levels are at, but, where we're going in the future as a planet.

S: Well, I have I've actually made an aria that is using perspective data. So a second one is called, it's called Skagway Tidal Aria and it's based on the, on data from the Skagway Bay in Alaska. And there was only recorded data through 2021, I believe, when I made it and the piece goes through 2081. And so I'm using this projected tide data that I found a resource online that allowed me to kind of get this projected data source. And what's interesting in that case is we hear so much about sea level rise, because of course it's happening, but in this particular place, for a while, the sea level is actually falling. And it's because as the glaciers are melting, they're releasing how much pressure and weight they're putting on that land. And so the land itself is actually getting kind of buoyed up by this release of the weight of the glaciers. But that will even out over time. And the tides and the tides and the sea level in that area will start to rise as they are more, you know, globally. And so I think, you know, I wanted to choose that piece because again, it kind of addresses head on some of these things that might get used to try to be a foil, for climate change of, oh, look at this place. The tides are actually falling. But you know, it continues to look far enough out that we, we do see this trend. It's kind of this unescapable thing.

D: So as you're coming up with ideas for art what is that that moment where you kind of realize what, what that idea will be? Does it normally come to you as you're figuring out what data that you're going to apply to the art medium, or is it the other way around? You have an art museum in mind, and then you find data to apply to that. How does how does that work?

S: I think it's more often driven by the medium and I would say this is a segment of the work that I do. It's consistently across my, my body of work. It's not always this combination of a data set and the medium. Some are not really engaging with, with data at all. And I'm a very process-driven artist, meaning I just, I like to handle materials and I like to make things, and fiber is very repetitive and, and iterative. So you kind of repeat the same action until you get a larger surface material. And so yes, it's very materially based.

D: What do you see the as the value of using data in artwork and artwork to visualize data for, not just the average person looking at art, the average person consuming art, but for, you know, people who are out in the field, who are in the act of gathering this data and are studying, studying the planet or whatever, whatever it is that they're gathering data for.

S: Something I think about a lot is, how many different ways we have of understanding the world around us and data is one of those ways, scientific data is one of those ways, our personal experiences, and relationships with each other and with place is another of those ways. And so by using data as a material in my work, I'm starting to get at that or I'm trying to kind of point to, I'm trying to put data kind of on the level with some other ways of relating to place. I'm not trying to imply, certainly, that there isn't value or there isn't truth in scientific data. There is. I think what I'm trying to get at is that it is one of multiple ways of getting to a truth, or a way of understanding or relating to a place, and by using it as material in the way I use other materials in my studio, it doesn't become the one true thing you can point to in a work. It's also the sort of emotional reaction to rising tides is also true. The knitted form that starts to come apart is as true as the actual, sort of measurements of that seismograph.

D: As an artist, and we hear this all the time that, you know, it's been said that creativity is the right brain, right side of the brain. Analytics is the left side of the brain. But you as an artist, what do you see as the relationship between data and, and your art? Like, how do those two things play together in your mind?

S: I think it really comes down to, like that very quick switch I make when I'm working with data into thinking of it as a material. So just as a quick aside, I had the opportunity to work with a NASA field research group in the fall of 2023, doing some research in the San Francisco volcanic field, which is near Flagstaff, Arizona. So helping them collect data. And that was a very different experience for me than working with numerical data and kind of translating that into a new material. I think I don't necessarily relate as much to that process of getting the numbers, recording the numbers. But once I have that set of numbers and I can think of that as a material that I get to play with and make understandable in a different way, I think it's essentially a very quick translate, a very quick transition into the the creative side of thinking.

D: So what I take away from your artwork is that not only can data about our planet be made into art, but that art also provides a little more visual clarity and can contribute to understanding the planet better. Sarah, do you have any parting thoughts?

S: I do, so it's something that I see a lot at openings of different shows or just in friends or family members talking to me is this hesitation of interpreting contemporary art or this hesitancy around feeling like they really "get it". And I guess my parting thought would just be to say that you get it. Whoever's listening to this, I promise you that you are equipped to take whatever experience from, the artwork that you're seeing that, you want to take from it. It's a valid interpretation. You're bringing your own experiences, your own knowledge to it. And. Yeah. So I hope that you go see more art!

D: Awesome. Well thank you. And that was Sarah Nance, Assistant Professor at the Binghamton University Department of Art and Design. I'm David Hermanovitch, and this has been The Aha! Moment presented by Binghamton University. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next month. The moment is a Binghamton University podcast. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.