POSITIONS THROUGH ITERATING:WRITING RESPONSE

STATEMENT

In redeveloping the previous phase of my project, The Shipping Forecast, I attempted to reconstruct the original speech information in visual language. This process led to a series of new thoughts: as the system iterates and the information spreads, will the visual representation become distorted? Will the ‘vibe’ brought by visuals replace our true understanding of the message? Can we really rely entirely on the information conveyed by visuals?

I started my exploration with the concept of ‘forecast’ and gradually realised that it is no longer just a weather forecast, but a symbol of our future lifestyle. Today, ‘forecast’ implies the modelling of the future by artificial intelligence, big data, ecosystems and even social networks – models that we increasingly rely on to understand and predict the world. However, is this reliance taking us away from a true sense of the present?

Therefore, the core of this visual reconstruction is not only to ‘reproduce’, but also to stimulate reflection and rediscovery of the information itself through the language of images, and to uncover experiences and narratives that may have been overlooked in over-predictive mechanisms.

REFERENCE 01. READING LIST

Han, B.-C. (2015) The transparency society. Translated by E. Butler. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

“The compulsion of transparency reduces things to information. The society of transparency is a society of positivity. Nothing remains hidden or withdrawn. Everything is delivered up to visibility.” (Han, 2015, p. 2)

My project treats The Shipping Forecast as more than a weather bulletin—as a model of how systems try to predict, package, and present knowledge. In reworking the forecast visually, I notice how each iteration appears more legible, yet becomes more detached and disembodied. What starts as information turns into surface—recognisable, but emotionally hollow. Han’s warning about the loss of opacity feels especially relevant here: my work asks whether images can resist this flattening drive and instead hold ambiguity, hesitation, and the possibility of not knowing.

REFERENCE 02. READING LIST

Benzon, P. (2016) ‘On Publishing: Fugitive Materiality and the Future of the Anthropocene Book’, in Cox, G. and Lund, K. (eds.) Publishing as Artistic Practice. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 282–294.

“In the face of ubiquitous digital access, materiality becomes not only fragile, but fugitive—resisting fixity and challenging how we understand publication itself.” (Benzon, 2016, p. 283)

As my project reinterprets The Shipping Forecast through iterative visual translation, I’m drawn to Paul Benzon’s notion of “fugitive materiality”—the idea that in digital systems, information is never fixed, but always on the move, always slipping away. Each time the forecast is reworked visually, its meaning doesn’t become clearer; it becomes more unstable, more abstract. What was once a precise message starts to behave like noise—legible but detached, aesthetic but emptied out. Benzon’s text highlights the instability built into systems of mediation and distribution, which speaks directly to my concern: when information is constantly predicted, processed, and circulated, what traces of the real are we still holding onto?

REFERENCE 03. ABOUT THE PROJECT

Related by topic

Rubinstein, D. and Sluis, K. (2013) ‘The Digital Image in Photographic Culture: Algorithmic Photography and the Crisis of Representation’, in Lister, M. (ed.) The Photographic Image in Digital Culture. London: Routledge, pp. 22–40.

“The digital image does not represent the world, but is a set of instructions for the construction of a visual event.” (Rubinstein and Sluis, 2013, p. 23)

Rubinstein and Sluis’s concept of the digital image as a set of instructions rather than a visual trace of the real offers a crucial shift in thinking—one that directly informs how I treat visual elements in this project. In translating The Shipping Forecast into a series of drawn or generated image forms, I’m not interested in mimicking reality but in constructing a visual system that behaves algorithmically: repeatable, process-based, and open to distortion. These line-based compositions are not representations in the traditional sense; they act more like outputs of a system. As meaning slips away from clarity and toward pattern, rhythm, and residue, the image becomes less about what it shows and more about how it operates—what kind of system, gesture, or logic it enacts.

REFERENCE 04. ABOUT THE PROJECT

Related by method / medium:

Sedira, Z. (2011) Lighthouse in the Sea of Time. Available at: https://www.zinebsedira.com/lighthouse-in-the-sea-of-time-2011/ (Accessed: 2 May 2025).

“Sedira uses the lighthouse as a site of memory and signal—a structure that transmits, but also marks a distance, a dislocation” (Foster, 2012, n.p.).

In revisiting The Shipping Forecast, I’m not so much focused on what it says, but on how it works—how a system designed to deliver objective information ends up carrying something far more emotional and unstable. Its repetitive phrasing and detached tone create a weird in-between space: it feels constant and familiar, but also cold, distant, and strangely empty. That contradiction mirrors my use of visual repetition and degradation, where each version shifts further from the source. Instead of sharpening meaning, it starts to erode it—turning clarity into Vibe, and information into residue. The forecast stops being a tool for understanding and becomes something else entirely: a system that both reveals and conceals, that simulates presence while quietly distancing us from the real.

REFERENCE 05.DEMONSTRATES A CRITICAL POSITION

Mitchell, W.J.T. (2005) What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

“Pictures are not just inert objects to be examined and interpreted; they are animated beings with desires, demands, appetites.” (Mitchell, 2005, p. 6)

As the visual system of The Shipping Forecast evolves through iteration, the images begin to shift from clarity toward ambiguity—from delivering information to generating atmosphere. Each new version raises questions: Is the visual becoming less reliable? Is it still high-fidelity, or does it deliberately embrace distortion? Mitchell’s view of images as active agents—not passive containers—offers a framework to understand this transformation. These visuals no longer simply show; they perform. They attract, disrupt, and mislead, generating affect rather than certainty. What we’re left with is not the message, but the mood it constructs. In this context, I ask: Can we still trust what we see? Or has vision become just another surface—slick, suggestive, but ultimately unstable?

REFERENCE 06.WILD CARD

Metahaven (2010) ‘Sealand’, in van der Velden, D. and Gielen, M. (eds.) Uncorporate Identity. Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, pp. 6–49.

“A design is not a signifier of authority but the architecture of a possible state.” (Metahaven, 2010, p. 11)

The visual system I am constructing does not seek to reproduce or decode the original language of The Shipping Forecast, but rather treats it as a structural foundation for testing how images can become uncertain, indeterminate, and resistant to interpretation. This methodological approach aligns more closely with Metahaven’s logic of design, in which the visual operates not as a communicative device but as an architecture of potential—a system that suspends meaning rather than stabilising it. Much like the strategies observed in acronym-style design—characterised by functional hierarchy, compressed interfaces, and deliberately ambiguous labelling—my images progressively withdraw from legibility through processes of repetition and distortion. What emerges is not a visual representation of weather, but a simulation and gradual dismantling of the predictive apparatus itself.