Semi-Diurnal Spaces

Semi-Diurnal Spaces is a full-dome computational installation that transforms the tidal and atmospheric conditions of the Bristol Channel into a continuously shifting digital sculpture. Live data including sea level, wind and humidity enters a fluid particle system, shaping its gravity, viscosity and movement in real time. Rather than representing the landscape, the work allows the physical forces of the surrounding environment to become active within the digital space. The installation considers the tension between the fluidity of natural systems and our impulse to measure, quantify and contain them. Along the South Wales coastline, an immense tidal body is continuously translated into numbers: water levels, atmospheric readings and forecasts. Semi-Diurnal Spaces reverses this process, allowing these discrete measurements to become unstable and sensorial again, returning data to movement, sound and spatial experience. Within the controlled architecture of the full dome, the Bristol Channel becomes a remote presence. Its rhythms interrupt the smooth surfaces and predetermined behaviours associated with contemporary screen culture, producing an environment that can never unfold in precisely the same way twice. The work asks whether digital technologies might operate not only as instruments for observing the world, but as interfaces through which we can develop a more embodied relationship with systems that exceed our immediate perception. Developed through field research along the South Wales coastline and visits to tidal monitoring sites, the work connects computational processes to the material conditions from which its data originates. Semi-Diurnal Spaces forms part of Studio Above&Below’s wider investigation into how invisible environmental phenomena can be made perceptible, and how digital spaces might become more porous to the slow, unpredictable forces of the physical world.