Immersive Sky Experience

Bringing into conversation the visual poetics of the sky, machine learning technology and community agency amidst the increasingly precarious lives of coastal inhabitants, Mohanty’s shifts away from the singular envelope narrative of the sky. His commendable attempt to elaborate the subjectivity and wisdom of the ever-changing skies using collective community efforts in algorithmic archiving and the local language of Odia, reignites trust in its ability to foretell addressing climate disasters.

Jury Statement

Immersive Sky Experience explores the common sky as an observatory for forecasting using artificial intelligence, machine learning technology, data mining, and archiving for climate storytelling and weather predictions. It forecasts on a minute-to-minute basis weather changes to specific micro geographies, providing reports from windows, streets, villages, municipalities, and small towns.

The project brings visual data/photos of the sky from six coastal districts of Odisha, voluntarily uploaded by the public. This provides a unique perspective on and experience of the Odia language and culture, Odia people and their characteristics. This is a web-based interactive project. The audience sees a continuously changing sky juxtaposed with a climate story or forecast.

http://www.immersiveskyexperience.com

Credits

Conception and Creation: Paribartana Mohanty / Text and Translation: Paribartana Mohanty and Gita Nandan Ballabha Das / Research Assistance: Jyoti Ranjan Sahoo, Gita Nandan Ballabha Das, Satyabadi Biswal / Technical Assistance: Jyoti Ranjan Nayak (Sigma Analytics and Computing Pvt Ltd, Odisha) / Finance and mentorship supported by Sharjah Art Foundation Production Program 2023 and Prince Claus Mentorship Award for Cultural & Artistic Responses to Environmental Change 2022-23.

The presentation of the work is funded by State of the ART(ist), a collaboration between the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ars Electronica.