We are thrilled to announce that a two-year research postdoc housed within the Weather Report Project is open for applications. The announcement information follows:

Research Fellow

Winchester School of Art

Location:  Winchester School of Art
Salary:   £31,406 to £38,587 per annum
Full Time Fixed Term for 2 years
Closing Date:  Friday 01 April 2022
Interview Date:   Wednesday 13 April 2022
Reference:  1733522FH

Two-Year Postdoctoral Award in Environmental Humanities, Media and Art

Winchester School of Art is part of University of Southampton and is committed to addressing the most complex societal and environmental challenges. As a world-leading, research-intensive university, with a strong and high-quality educational offering, we are renowned for our innovation and enterprise and are within the top 1% of universities worldwide.    

The AHRC and German DFG funded Weather Reports – Wind as Model, Media, and Experience (WeRep) is hiring postdoctoral researcher. We are looking for a person who can combine expertise in environmental humanities and media as well as art studies (including potentially practice-based research) to deliver original research that addresses cultural histories and data cultures of wind. The successful candidate has the capacity to work in a cross-disciplinary research team and in addition to conducting original research and publishing, is able to take a key role in coordinate key outputs of the project, work together with the relevant stakeholders (such as in other disciplines including STEM areas as well as the art and curatorial sector), and assist in key management of the project. Ideally, you would have already conducted research on questions of ecology, eco data or elementary media and bring experience in interdisciplinary work or artistic research.

WeRep engages with wind as an aesthetic and mediated part of contemporary culture from scientific analysis to everyday experience. WeRep builds an interdisciplinary research focus on the modern media cultural context of wind as it becomes contextualised in relation to contemporary climate, earth and ocean sciences and its various aesthetic meanings. A leading question of the project is how is wind perceived? This question is specified to bodily perception, cultural context, and scientific modelling and knowledge so as to bring different perspectives that mediate between embodied experience, data practices and aesthetic production. The project team is located both at Winchester School of Art (this post) and at University of Potsdam. The working language of the project is English. Proximity to Winchester is desirable.

This post-doctoral research position will facilitate the successful delivery of the Weather Reports grant. The position requires undertaking research in accordance with the specified research project under the supervision of the award holders as well as coordinating engagement activities associated with the grant, such as organizing workshop, data salons and collaborative endeavours with our partner institution in Germany. The appointment also requires help editing and delivering a special issue of a journal related to the Weather Reports research agenda and authoring a journal article combining the researcher’s own research in relation to the project.

The successful candidate must have knowledge of and a PhD in one or more of the following: Humanities (aesthetic engagement in environmental studies), media theory, art/design practice, speculative design, and data visualization (working with data sets). Experience of organizing small scale academic events, liaising and collaborating with research institutions (archives, galleries, etc), collaborative research, academic publishing and editing. 

Applications for Research Fellow positions will be considered from candidates who are working towards or nearing completion of a relevant PhD qualification. The title of Research Fellow will be applied upon successful completion of the PhD. Prior to the qualification being awarded the title of Senior Research Assistant will be given.

Interview date – 13^th April 2022.

Working at the University of Southampton gives you access to a wide range of benefits in addition to our competitive rates of pay. Our core benefits include pension scheme membership; a generous annual leave allowance (supplemented by University closure days and public holidays) and excellent family leave arrangements (including maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave). Up to date benefits information can be found at this university link:https://www.southampton.ac.uk/hr/services/benefits-explained/index.page

We aim to create an environment where everyone can thrive and are proactive in fostering a culture of inclusion, respect and equality of opportunity. We believe that we can only truly meet our objectives if we are reflective of society, so we are passionate about creating a working environment in which you are free to bring your whole self to work.  Demonstrating an understanding of EDI and how these principles can be applied in a higher education setting is paramount.

With a generous holiday allowance as well as additional university closure days we are committed to supporting our staff and students and open to a flexible working approach.  

If you wish to discuss the role in more detail, please email either the PI, Prof. Ryan Bishop at r.bishop@soton.ac.uk or the Co-I, Prof. Jussi Parikka at j.parikka@soton.ac.uk

Application Procedure

You should submit your completed online application form at https://jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Hannah Nash (HR Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 4043 or email recruitment@soton.ac.uk  Please quote reference 1733522FH on all correspondence.

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Further details:

• Job Description and Person Specification

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Please note that applications from agencies will not be accepted unless indicated in the job advert.

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Weather Report: Wind as Model, Media and Experience

Ryan Bishop (co-PI) Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK

Birgit Schneider (co-PI) Potsdam University, Germany

Jussi Parikka (co-I) Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

Welcome to the blog for our research project.

This collaborative and interdisciplinary project focuses on wind as an aesthetic, sensed, and mediated entity in contemporary culture. Wind has been modelled since late 19th century as scientific data that facilitates work in various test situations – from mechanical flight to architectural design – while persisting as deeply experienced and poetic sensation: from the vast cultural history of wind in literature and the arts to the as rich history of gods of wind in indigenous mythology. Concentrating on the modern media cultural context of wind as it becomes contextualised in relation to contemporary climate, earth and ocean sciences and its various aesthetic meanings, we propose a new theorisation of wind as elemental media. Indeed, the project starts off from the hypothesis proposed by media scholar John Durham Peters that “weather is a test case for media theory”. We specify this hypothesis in our project by focusing on the question: how is wind perceived? This question is specified to bodily perception, cultural context, and scientific modelling and uses so as to bring different perspectives that mediate between embodied experience, data practices and aesthetic production. Wind, as is true for climate in many cases, is perceived through proxies, media and abstractions. Such proxies and abstractions (representation at large) have long figured in the intellectual inquiry of the investigative the project’s collaborative research team.

We will use this intentionally expanded scope of questions to collaboratively and interdisciplinarily create new insights into perceptions of climate and climate change on both theoretical and aesthetic levels. We do so by bringing together media scholars, data visualizers, artists and atmospheric studies in the emerging field of environmental humanities and during a new workshop format called “wind data salons” and by transferring our insights through articles, a conference and an exhibition. Encompassing artistic and curatorial practice, data and scientific modelling, literature and information systems, this project seeks to grasp the epistemological implications of wind as media and its ineluctable centrality for understanding and experiencing climate crises.

The team avail themselves of the complementary arts/humanities and science facilities at two major research institutions: the University of Southampton and Potsdam University to examine the intersections of environmental humanities, theorisation of weather as media, data practices and visualisations of weather. The underpinning concerns how to understand the different and at times conflicting registers of sensation of weather: as human experience and as scientific measurement, which both flow into storytelling about reality.

Wind ist eine ästhetische und gleichermaßen spürbare wie messbare Entität. Seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert wurde Wind in Form wissenschaftlicher Daten modelliert, die seine Kraft in verschiedenen Anordnungen – vom Windkanal bis zum aerodynamischen Design – erforschten. Gleichzeitig bestehen Stürme und Winde als zutiefst erfahrene und poetische Empfindung fort: von der umfangreichen Kulturgeschichte des Windes in der Literatur und den Künsten bis hin zur ebenso reichen Geschichte der Windgötter in der indigenen Mythologie. Wir konzentrieren uns auf den modernen medienkulturellen Kontext des Windes, wie er in Bezug auf die zeitgenössischen Klima-, Erd- und Meereswissenschaften und seine verschiedenen ästhetischen Bedeutungen kontextualisiert wird. Davon ausgehend schlagen wir eine neue Theoretisierung des Windes als elementares Medium vor, wie es der Medienwissenschaftler John Durham Peters mit seiner Hypothese zum Ausdruck brachte, dass „das Wetter ein Testfall für die Medientheorie ist“. Wir spezifizieren diese Hypothese in unserem Projekt, indem wir uns auf die Frage konzentrieren: Wie wird Wind wahrgenommen? Diese Frage stellen wir anhand der körperlichen Wahrnehmung, den kulturellen Kontext und die wissenschaftliche Modellierung und Nutzung des Windes, um verschiedene Perspektiven zu verbinden, die zwischen verkörperter Erfahrung, Datenpraktiken und ästhetischer Produktion vermitteln. Denn der Wind lässt sich, wie die meisten Klimafaktoren, nur vermittelt erforschen. 

Diese absichtlich weite Perspektive auf das Phänomen Wind nutzen wir in der Zusammenarbeit zweier großer Forschungseinrichtungen, der Universität Southampton und der Universität Potsdam, um die Schnittpunkte von Environmental Humanities, die Theoretisierung von Wetter als Medium, Datenpraktiken und Visualisierungen von Wind zu untersuchen. Mittels kollaborativer und interdisziplinärer Arbeitsweisen werden wir neue Einsichten in die Wahrnehmung von Klima und Klimawandel auf theoretischer wie ästhetischer Ebene schaffen. Wir tun dies, indem wir MedienwissenschaftlerInnen, DatenvisualisiererInnen, KünstlerInnen und AtmosphärenforscherInnen im aufstrebenden Feld der Environmental Humanities und im Rahmen eines neuen Workshop-Formats, den „Wind-Daten-Salons“ zusammenbringen. Darüber hinaus werden wir unsere Erkenntnisse durch Artikel, eine Ausstellung und eine Konferenz weitergeben. Indem das Projekt gleichermaßen Datenpraxis und wissenschaftliche Modellierung, Literatur wie Informationssysteme sowie künstlerische und kuratorische Praxis umfasst, möchten wir die epistemologischen Implikationen von Wind als Kraft und Medium und seine unausweichliche Bedeutung für das Verständnis und die Erfahrung der Klimakrise erfassen. Dabei geht es um die Frage, wie die unterschiedlichen und manchmal widersprüchlichen Register der Wetterwahrnehmung zu verstehen sind: als menschliche Erfahrung wie als wissenschaftliche Messung, die beide in das Erzählen von Geschichten über die Realität einfließen.