weather modification as art?

August 28, 2012 6:34 AM

I'm looking for examples of fiction, serious proposals, or maybe even actual events in which weather modification technology was used as an art form.

Vik Muniz' piece Clouds is close.... but not quite.

posted by moonmilk to Media & Arts (22 answers total)

There is a sequence in John C. Wright's "The Golden Age" that fits this. (It's been a while since I read it, so I'm a little hazy on the details, but I do remember the artist asking one of the characters to please stop flying around inside his weather sculpture because he's disrupting the planned wind patterns.)
posted by ook at 6:39 AM on August 28, 2012

John Varley's short fiction piece "The Phantom of Kansas" has a meteorological artist as the narrator/protagonist.
posted by tyllwin at 6:40 AM on August 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

J. G. Ballard's "The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D"
posted by drdanger at 6:40 AM on August 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

There's Walter de Maria's The Lightning Field, which is real. It doesn't really modify the weather, but it does call down lightning.
posted by rlk at 6:42 AM on August 28, 2012

Does the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics count?
posted by cromagnon at 6:55 AM on August 28, 2012

Kate Bush's song "Cloudbusting" might fit what you're looking for.
posted by DWRoelands at 6:57 AM on August 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have an unpublished (ok, and mostly unwritten) story that uses this as its premise. If you are just looking for ideas about this feel free to memail me and I'll share the synopsis.
posted by mikepop at 7:04 AM on August 28, 2012

Do Berndnaut Smilde's cloud-based works count?
posted by griphus at 7:16 AM on August 28, 2012

Stretching the definition of "weather", in The Phantom Tollbooth, Milo conducts the sunrise.
posted by Egg Shen at 7:21 AM on August 28, 2012

Weather control is one of Christof's creative tools on The Truman Show.
posted by hot soup girl at 7:36 AM on August 28, 2012

Another endorsement of Kate Bush: "Cloudbusting." Starring Donald Sutherland.
posted by Mothlight at 8:55 AM on August 28, 2012

In Karl Schroeder's Virga saga, there are lots of references to weather/cloud/climate artists. (The books are set inside a Dyson sphere with an artificial sun.)

Ned Kahn makes clouds and fog on a small but impressive scale.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:41 AM on August 28, 2012

A bit embarrassed that this was my first thought (as opposed to people with Whitney exhibitions and whatnot), but.....

There's a scene in the 'Avatar - the last airbender' cartoon where Aang makes a cloud shaped like a giant skull to convince the omen-believing villagers to evacuate in advance of a volcanic eruption....
posted by Ausamor at 9:42 AM on August 28, 2012

In Iain [M.] Banks's SF book "Look to Windward," (A novel of The Culture), a memorial concert for an 800-years-past war is composed by an exile from a current war that the Culture started somewhat accidentally. The concert included weather effects as well as a meteor shower overhead, some of which were disrupted by the giant pushy spacecraft overhead that/who wanted a better view.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:37 AM on August 28, 2012

Dr. Theopolis in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century tv-series was in charge of the weather, IIRC. I recall one episode where he says that he's adding some special touches to that day's sunset that he thinks will be quite nice.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:46 AM on August 28, 2012

Qatar has proposed using artificial clouds during the 2022 World Cup, which is not even the most ridiculous thing about their selection as hosts.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:24 PM on August 28, 2012

It's a bit of a stretch (both of "weather" and of "art"), and it's a bit of a spoiler, but: Jack McDevitt's novel The Engines of God.
posted by stebulus at 1:51 PM on August 28, 2012

There's the proposed Santa Monica Weather Field, which really is an attempt to use weather modification directly as art. But its contribution as either is perhaps a little dubious.
posted by cacophony at 6:30 PM on August 28, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for all the great references!

tyllwin, "The Phantom of Kansas" turns out to be the half-remembered story that inspired this question!
posted by moonmilk at 8:01 PM on August 28, 2012

The classic is Shakespeare's The Tempest.
posted by at the crossroads at 2:32 AM on August 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yes, The Tempest! ...and What's Opera, Doc?

Arise, Storm! North winds blow! South winds blow! Typhoons... Hurricanes... Earthquakes! SMOG!

posted by moonmilk at 8:25 AM on August 29, 2012

Andy Goldsworthy's Rain Shadows might be thought of as weather modification on an extremely local level...
posted by oulipian at 9:29 PM on September 17, 2012