the infinite-state machine is weathered

For millennia, man has endeavoured to understand and predict the weather. As forecasting methods improve with technology, we gradually lose embodied knowledge, relying more on data and systems to navigate climatic phenomena. Syahrul Anuar delves into ideas of value and myth-making that surround our evolving relationship with the abstract phenomenon of weather. Through three bodies of process-driven works, he aims to re-configure and re-evaluate this complex relationship. In what he terms an “infinite-state machine”, artworks extract live data about the weather to produce an infinite series of unpredictable states or outcomes. Various agents in this ecosystem predict climatic patterns, commoditise weather as assets and trade weather derivatives. Actual data is presented alongside fictional narratives or commentaries, blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, lived reality and digital realms.

Syahrul considers our present-day preoccupation with using technology to decipher the world around us similar to ancient practices of interpreting weather through mystical rituals and folklore. This taps on the fundamental human desire to understand and distil value from the world around us. the infinite-state machine is weathered is a reflection on our complicity in shaping the narratives surrounding our environment and the universe.