VISIONARY INSTITUTE
The Earthbound can take heart as well as action’ (Donna Haraway)
The Weather Gear, The strong Heart is a geo-sphere, 80cm in diameter made from locally coppiced hazel rods and copper rings and pins. It sits on top of a triangular copper plate connected to an electric motor that revolves the sphere at variable slow speeds. The motor is covered in a layer of sculpted clay and this fungus-like, bio-myco-morphic layer also funnels the Rainbow Serpent into and out of the motor.
As the geo-sphere revolves, the shifting, triangular patterns of the spinning structure has the effect of making the viewer feel a little dizzy, blurring the distinction between who is spinning. This represents the cyclical movement of thought within the living logic. The spherical momentum is intended to act as a spacetime continuum in which the whole structure is situated as a visionary loci, a mesmerising space disrupting retinal vision, inducing relaxation and initiating visions. This is another kind of Voynichese Portal facilitating access to the realm of plants, cosmology and healing.
The ‘purpose’ or narrative of The Weather Gear, The Strong Heart is to bring attention to the body and mind, climate and seasons as one interconnected complex multispecies phenomenon. The microbial clay that connects the motor to the pipes of the Rainbow Serpent facilitates the supply of vital energy and the strange power of interconnectedness. The effect of watching The Weather Gear, The Strong Heart for any significant amount of time is to feel drawn into a vortex, a wormhole or portal to another reality.