Fifty-Two Years from Monday gives physical form to extreme weather trajectories, as forecasted by The Irish Centre for High End Computing to affect the island of Ireland from 2070 to 2099. The artwork is constructed as a series of metapatterns (a pattern of patterns). The weather forecasts in question are based on the outputs of high-resolution climate models and plotted in MATLAB, otherwise known as Matrix Laboratory - a multi-paradigm, numerical computing environment.

These future predictions are simulated in thread by the artist, by plotting the geographically coordinated path of each projected storm. The artistic process deliberately by-passes the systems of orientation and classification that usually underpin complex representational models. Mixing machine and hand-stitching, the artist rendered the networks of lines on paper, stripping the source material of its coded information. The creative stimulus for Fifty-Two Years from Monday is rooted in the career and scientific achievements of Lady Ada Lovelace, a nineteenth century English mathematician and writer who advanced the initial comparisons she made between weaving, enumeration looping and patterns in algebra, to become the first computer programmer. Initially exhibited in 2018, the work’s title referred to the commencement date of the first prefiguration incorporated in the series.

Kindly supported by The Arts Council of Ireland’s Project Award (2017).