Christina Lorena Weisner

The “493 Vehicle of Instrumentation,” better known as the “493 V-Fin,” built by a company specializing in environmental monitoring, is a high-speed, dihedral-winged device made of fiberglass. It is weighted with lead towards the nose of its triangular form to achieve the object’s parallel orientation to the ocean floor as it is towed from behind a boat. Across the beam from the V-Fin hangs a cube filled with water which weighs the equivalent as the V-Fin (125lbs). The beam rotates on a vertical and horizontal axis. Whatever action is taking place in the cube of water is reflected in the V-Fin's positioning. Action is affected by present circumstance, which inevitably reflects processes of the world such as gravity, mass, weather, space and time. In addition, the plexiglass cube is specifically designed in such a way to allow changes in the water it contains to influence the V-Fin as a result of evaporation or dripping through a valve.

493 V-Fins are used to tow scientific instruments at precise depths for a wide range of sampling applications, including water temperature, depth, levels of chlorophyll and plankton counts. As the 493 V-Fin is often equipped with sonar, one of its uses has been to locate objects lost at sea, such as aircraft flight recorders. In March and April of 2014, a V-Fin was used in the search for missing Malaysian Airways Flight MH370. However, the fact that the wreckage of the plane has, as of the date of this publication, still not yet been located after years of searching, reveals that the ability to precisely explore every aspect of the vast ocean bottom still remains outside the scope of our contemporary technological facility. Plenty of opportunities for discovery remain to challenge us for millennia to come.

detail

The head of a fossil specimen of Tiktaalik roseae.
Credit: Ted Daeschler

My interest in scientific instruments like the V-Fin reflect my overall interest in the aesthetics of function, a prerequisite for such instruments. The geometric forms that are often expressed in their designs are not necessarily new, modern inventions; on the contrary, they are often some of the most ancient forms found in nature. The 493 V-Fin, for example, has the same rounded triangular shape as the head of a Tiktaalik, an extinct lobe-finned fish that lived 375 million years ago during the late Devonian period. Both instrument and fish utilize this shape for the same function, i.e., to make it possible to maneuver at depth in the water parallel to the ocean surface with a minimum of resistance or effort. There is an innate logic in such simple geometric and natural forms that enables them to transcend any single specific incarnation. Embedded in the signification of all form is the mythology and consciousness of all time, not simply sequentially, but wholly in the present.

Detail of United States Geological Survey’s website showing real-time seismic activity worldwide (upper television) and viewer’s footsteps being registered on local seismometer (lower television).

Each of the nine glass hemispheres in the sculpture sits atop a plexiglass cube on which a mallet-rigged system is built to strike the spheres when activated by real-time seismic activity based on live data provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). There are approximately fifty earthquakes worldwide per day that register 2.5 or greater on the Richter scale. One of the nine spheres houses a working seismometer, which consequently will read and display on a screen the frequency at which the spheres are being hit by the mallets as well as the movements caused by the footsteps of people in the gallery viewing the work. Ideally this sculpture will encourage viewers to consider the macro and micro processes through which we interact with the physical world on a daily basis. The resonating sound made by the mallets hitting the glass alters the space physically and psychologically as the sculpture quite literally creates a composition of tones correlating to the movement of the earth.

The sculpture functions in a perpetual present moment, as it updates data in real-time. It encourages viewers to make a direct comparison of their movements in and around the sculpture with the movement of the earth, and invites them to compare the deep geological time of tectonic plate movements with the fleeting temporality of their motions as living beings and consider how such notions of time co-exist.

Auditory perception offers advantages in temporal and spatial understanding, making it suitable as an alternative for helping to understand/interpret certain kinds of data. Through “sonification” via the sounds provided by the sculpture complementing the visual data appearing on a monitor screen, Ocean Bottom Seismometers conveys information about an ever-changing complex series of events often too large or too remote for the normal “categorical” mind to comprehend as readily.

The sculpture’s program pulls data from the USGS’s website, gathered from the National Earthquake Information Center through its national and global seismic reporting networks, then interprets the information and signals the sculptural array which hemispheres to strike according to the earthquake’s specific magnitude, with each having its own particular tone. The nine cubes and hemispheres are arranged to correlate with the nine magnitudes on the Richter scale.

The NEIC’s database is interesting structurally because it is non-linear and has a distributed authorship. People from all over world are constantly entering data and contributing to the creation and organization driving the database. Hence, the sculpture mixes the realities of the physical and the virtual world, utilizing technology to aid in our understanding of the physical, integrating the mechanical and the organic.

concept drawing

(24 variations with red background in IKEA Frames)
Paper, Ink, Wood, Paint
118 x 156 x 78 inches

Compressed Particleboard, Paint, Metal, Cement Residue, Silicone, 45 x 45 x 45 and 30 x 30 x 30 inches

Märker “Trass” Cement, Suevite (exhibiting 4 stages of Shock Metamorphism from meteorite impact), Microscopic Diamonds. Dimensions Variable, Individual Polyhedrons 45 x 45 x 45 and 30 x 30 x 30 inches 

The samples embedded in one plane of each of the Trass Zement polyhedrons contain quartz—in this case, shocked quartz—with inclusions exemplifying the four stages of progressive shock metamorphism in which the pre-existing rocks of the Ries region were affected and transformed by the incredibly intense conditions caused by the meteorite collision. I envision the polyhedrons as minimalist versions of matter from our solar system, tumbling through space within the asteroid belt.

The title of the sculpture grouping refers to a product of Märker Zementwerk GmbH, a cement factory founded by August Märker in 1889, located in the town of Harburg along the crater rim. “Trass,” the local name for volcanic tuff, is what both scientists and cement workers had long thought the regional rocks were made of. The company has been using “Trass” in their cement for decades because of its desirable qualities as a stable binding agent, and continues to refer to it as Trass Zement, despite the fact that we now know that “Trass” from Ries was created by a meteorite, not a volcano.

The use of the word in the title acknowledges the change that took place in the 1960’s when the Ries Crater’s cosmic origins were proved, and underscores the reoccurring potential for fallibility in scientific research and in any models of thinking based on pre-existing worldviews. Eugene Shoemaker’s discovery, in essence, linked the Ries Crater and the solar system, demonstrating once again that the Earth is not a changing entity unto itself, but is affected and influenced by the whole planetary system.

Because the materials in the Märker quarries were so similar to Moon rocks, astronauts Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell, Gene Cernan, and Joe Engle spent time in Harburg learning to identify impact formations in preparation for the Apollo 14 and 17 missions. In gratitude, an object in the asteroid belt orbiting the sun similar in size to the one that caused the Ries Crater is now named “Märker,” while a sizable Moon rock is now displayed in the local museum.

Still of Film, 10 minutes

Steel, Stone (Suevite containing melted material and microscopic diamonds)
80 x 61 x 36 inches

paintings, drawings, prints, fossils, models
Dimensions Variable

metal, nylon, velcro

43 x 43 x 43 inches

plastic, nylon, metal, unfired clay and grog

72 x 36 x 30 inches

unfired clay, plastic, nylon, and metal

variable dimensions

nylon, wood, cotton, and tape

48 x 18 x 18 inches

Aerial Film, PVC, Metal
60 x 60 x 60 inches

The nearly two-million-year-old Neuse River is one of the oldest in what is now known as the United States and stretches some 275 miles across the state of North Carolina. Its waters traverse ancient rift basins created during the break-up of the supercontinent Pangea and accumulate behind dams of the modern epoch before flowing onward to the global ocean. Rivers have the capacity to tell stories; to connect the past, the present and the future.

The River Cube Project explores the Neuse River as a unique environment created and influenced by relationships between nature, people, and technology. The Project is the catalyst for the collection and creation of context-specific materials that take the form of sculpture, drawings, data, audio visual materials, scientific and social studies that synthesize and reflect - present a sampling of - the Neuse River’s diversity and complexity.

In April/May of 2019, the River Cube was constructed and exhibited in the Gregg Museum of Art and Design. In May, the River Cube was taken from the museum to its launch site: the headwaters of the Eno River, the source of the Neuse river. Over the course of approximately three weeks, the River Cube Project drifted, paddled, peddled and sailed down river with artists, scientists and other guests gathering diverse social and environmental data and information that has become part of the Project’s archive. The River Cube Project stopped in cities, small towns and wilderness along the “route” to collect information and to join and create dialogue about the river and relationships it creates and hosts. Once the vessel crossed through the Ocracoke Inlet, the 275-mile journey was complete. The Project will culminate in a curated exhibition of the River Cube vessel and the Project’s collection.

Canoe: Circumpolar Vortex: Arctic Amplification, 2023

42x60x12” (x2)

Canoe found washed-up in Kitty Hawk Sound, Outer Banks, North Carolina due to high-speed, cyclonically rotating winds during the 2022 Polar Vortex weather event.

A circumpolar vortex is a large region of cold, rotating air that encircles both of Earth's polar regions. Occasionally, lobes or pieces of it break off, allowing intense cold to plunge into distant regions. Accelerated Arctic warming, known as Arctic amplification, is increasingly disrupting the Arctic polar vortex, leading to widespread severe winter weather events across the Northern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes such as the one in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in December of 2022.

“Even small amounts of heating or cooling traveling from the polar vortex can trigger or delay downwelling, altering theGulf Stream Current of the Atlantic, and the speed of other ocean currents.” The Gulf and Labrador currents meet right off the coast of the Outer Banks. “Since all other oceans depend on the Atlantic Ocean's movement of heat energy, climates across the planet can be dramatically affected. The weakening or strengthening of the polar vortex can alter the sea circulation more than a mile beneath the waves.” (Reichler, Tom; Kim, J: Manzini, E; Kroger, J, 2012, Nature Geoscience)

These examples underscore how two seemingly unrelated geographical locations, in this case, the Arctic and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, are in fact, inextricably entangled, connected by weather and currents.

The canoe revealed during the Polar Vortex in Kitty Hawk Bay appears (based on its dilapidated condition), to have been submerged for years, its surface patinaed by lengthy exposure to a mix of salt and fresh water.

The dissection and display of the canoe in its various parts draws specific attention to the form and surface texture etched by water, weather and general erosion over time into the fiberglass and layers of paint. Simultaneously these materials denote the larger atmospheric and oceanic processes responsible for the resurfacing of the canoe.

“Sea Marks” are often understood as landmarks, structures and devices that can be used to provide warning and guiding signs to mariners - channel markers, orange flags, buoys and beacons.

And then, there are Sea Marks of a different sort, composed of items discarded on the shore or at sea either unintentionally or intentionally: umbrellas, beach chairs, coolers, floatation devices and other plastic items. Such Sea Marks also act as a warning. Such discarded materials can be found in some of the most isolated regions on earth, such as the North Pole, either intact, broken-up, or as microplastics.

The works in this series have a reciprocal relationship. The short-term use of items discarded on the beaches of the Outer Banks are mostly made of plastic. Most plastic in use today comes from hydrocarbons derived from fossil fuels. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by industry, warm the planet and cause glaciers to melt. One geographical location is inextricably entangled with the other.

Aluminum, Plexiglass, Seagull feathers collected in the Outer Banks of NC and the North Pole in and around the Svalbard Archipelago and Arctic Ocean.

Arctic Circle: Emergency Signal Flag: Finding North, 2023

Each image 19x27”

Paper, Metal Clips, Plastic, Wood, Wind, Crystalline Ice, Snow, Rock, Sediment, Liquid Water, Compass, Earth’s Magnetic Field, Carbon Dioxide, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Other Human Activity.

Barnacles, Plastic, Time, Water, Metal, Plexiglass. Goggles found in the year 2020 on the beaches of Kill Devil Hills, NC

cardboard, wood, tape, plaster, halogen light

100 x 4 x 4 inches

metal, plaster, rubber

variable dimensions

clay, plastic, wood, fiber, cardboard, paper

variable dimensions

detail

metal, plastic, rubber, nylon

60 x 36 x 5 inches

metal, plastic, water, wood, paper, and paint

60 x 36 x 5 inches

Plastic, Fishing Buoy (collected near Isbukta, Spitzbergen, Svalbard Archipelago, Norway, 76°46.14’N, 016°58.06’E), Metal, Paper, Charcoal, 2024

Time becomes strangely odd at the poles. Earth’s surface rotation drastically slows down. The sun no longer appears to rise in the east and set in the west, seemingly hovering in almost the same position, resulting in continuous daylight throughout the summer or the reverse in winter.

Earth’s surface rotates at a faster speed at the Equator than it does at the poles. Earth is wider at the Equator, so to make a rotation in one 24-hour period, equatorial regions race nearly 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) per hour. Near the poles, Earth rotates at a sluggish 0.00008 kilometers (0.00005 miles) per hour.

A pendulum is a device made of a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. The regular motion of pendulums was used for timekeeping and was the world's most accurate timekeeping technology for 270 years, until the 1930s.

The device was used in the seventeenth century to discover that Earth’s gravity varied slightly with location. A pendulum deployed in South America registered two and a half minutes slower per day than in Paris. “Isaac Newton in Principia Mathematica showed that this was because the Earth was not a true sphere but slightly oblate (flattened at the poles) from the effect of centrifugal force due to its rotation, causing gravity to increase with latitude.”

Once set into motion, a Foucault pendulum’s plane of swing seems to rotate approximately 360° clockwise per day at the North Pole. In actuality, the plane of the swing of the pendulum is staying more or less consistent, and the Earth is rotating counter clockwise below it. The rate of rotation depends on the latitude in which the pendulum is placed, with it showing no rotation at the equator.

Earth's rotation is a fundamental aspect of our climate system. Changes in the Arctic, particularly at the North Pole, due to climate change, not only underscore the rapid transformations in these regions but also highlight the interconnectedness of Earth's rotational dynamics and climate patterns. The melting of polar ice due to global warming contributes to sea level rise and affects the distribution of Earth's mass. This redistribution can cause minute changes in the Earth's rotation and the axial tilt.