good at: measuring and recording small incremental changes not good at: recognising patterns or space
good at: detecting contrast perceiving enclosure quickly recognising significant changes in atmosphere
figure 2 Body-Instrument dialogue
what the tool notices, and what this tells the body
what the body notices Bodies and weather instruments have different relationships to environmental data. Bodies are adaptive: as we sense external conditions we adjust to maintain a level of internal stability – our pupils contract to control light, our circulatory systems have temperature gradients so that we can protect our core. Our skin’s sensitivity to heat, pain, and texture varies across our body’s surface. Because we are so good at remaining stable, small incremental changes in light, temperature, or moisture can be difficult to notice if we aren’t paying attention. In other words, we aren’t that good at sensing gradients. But what has become clear in my environmental surveying is that our bodies are really good at sensing contrast – a sudden change between two adjacent conditions, or a direct change happening in one place over time. As we move through space, we sense invisible edges between atmospheres: the boundary of a volume of shade where there is a sudden change in light and temperature, the cool moist volume of air that hovers near the water’s edge, the heat that travels up through a city street grate. These sudden changes mark the edge of a bubble of space, and by sensing atmospheric edges our bodies build our feelings of interiority and exteriority when we are outside.
The hand-held weather instruments I have used are highly sensitive and give a precise reading of environmental conditions to a tenth of a degree. It would be easy to assume they provide accurate measurements, but many of these tools are designed to take stationary readings or to adjust to changes slowly, and because of this they don’t acclimate as quickly as a body – accuracy often requires 1-5 minutes of waiting for an instrument to settle into its surroundings. In walking surveys, this has meant that the instruments are good at sensing gradients, but sudden contrast or change interrupts the instrument’s functioning as it needs time to recalibrate. These differences in behaviour create a dialogue between the body and the instrument that allows me, as the surveyor, to make more frequent and more sensitive observations by comparing what my body feels to what the instrument displays. We are often in disagreement, and these moments of incongruity force me to look more closely at what is going on. If the instrument is accurate, what am I not noticing? How is my body adjusting? If my body is accurate, has the instrument failed to acclimate? Or is it not affected by elements that are affecting me? In this dialogue I am forced to collect the data again, this time looking more closely, examining the context and environmental dynamics and understanding that my body is reading them all at once, while the instrument is pulling them apart.
on site review 39: tools
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