Coolest Thing Ever

Coolest thing ever

Windswept by Charles Sowers

Though we cannot physically hold wind or see its swirling forms around us, we can definitely feel it.

In order to help visualize wind-currents, artist Charles Sowers created a kinetic installation consisting of 612 aluminum weather vanes called “Windswept” (2011). These were then meticulously placed on the side of the Randall Museum in San Francisco. Through this installation, we are able to see the patterns in the wind; where the currents go, how they turn, and sometimes how wind can abruptly change direction. This gives us a visual representation of the natural, invisible, force which moves around us, and sometimes with enough force, pushes and pulls us.

As the artist states: “Our ordinary experience of wind is as a solitary sample point of a very large invisible phenomenon. Windswept is a kind of large sensor array that samples the wind at its point of interaction with the Randall Museum building and reveals the complexity and structure of that interaction.”

This sort of installation creates a better understanding, and appreciation, of the wind. It is not just one large gust; a single wave can be made up of smaller currents, going in their own directions from the main flow. A dialogue begins to form between the building and the wind, the weather vanes acting as translators.

-Anna Paluch