Hyper-Dust

*Note: This project is a team effort
Team members include:

Ni Erlu, Lin Ziyao, Guo Songnan and Fan Xuyi

The tiny invisible dust that we overlook is the epitome of a huge problem that affects the global warming of the climate, fuels the spread of harmful substances, causes transnational ecological impacts and is also an important source of nutrients for the Amazon rainforest. It can expose the full extent of the climate problem and even the interconnectedness of everything. To quote the ecological philosopher Morton's concept, dust is a hyper-object. The dust has no spatial or temporal limits; it is capable of accomplishing an inter-temporal exchange of matter dominated by natural forces. Theoretically, it is possible for us in Beijing to have had a brush with dust from the Sahara. To convey this idea, we have embarked on this art project - In Search of the Sahara.

2021.12.

Climate Interconnection

We all know that the climate problem is not isolated; it has a complex system behind it. For example, the huge dust storm from the Sahara Desert that made landfall in the United States last year was caused by the shrinking extent of Arctic sea ice and rising temperatures. Salt dust particles from salt dust storms in the Aral Sea have even been carried into the bloodstream of Antarctic penguins. Faced with the interconnectedness and global nature of the climate problem, we need new methodologies to discuss climate issues.

Dust from the Sahara

The dust in the Sahara Dust Stream consists mainly of tiny minerals that were once rocks. Typically, as the dust stream passes through the Canary Islands of Spain, which lie hundreds of miles downwind of the desert's source, most of the dust that falls is less than 20 microns in diameter, half the size of particles that can be seen with the naked eye on Earth. As the dust crosses the ocean to reach the Caribbean Sea, it falls even finer - less than 10 microns - and many of the remaining fragments are even smaller. The prevailing northeasterly trade winds tend to blow the dust into the Atlantic rather than north to Europe.

Dust from the Sahara

The dust in the Sahara Dust Stream consists mainly of tiny minerals that were once rocks. Typically, as the dust stream passes through the Canary Islands of Spain, which lie hundreds of miles downwind of the desert's source, most of the dust that falls is less than 20 microns in diameter, half the size of particles that can be seen with the naked eye on Earth. As the dust crosses the ocean to reach the Caribbean Sea, it falls even finer - less than 10 microns - and many of the remaining fragments are even smaller. The prevailing northeasterly trade winds tend to blow the dust into the Atlantic rather than north to Europe.

Without this dust, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth would not be so rich.

"It's a small world," says NASA researcher Hongbin Yu, a meteorologist at the University of Maryland, "and we're all connected."

Looking for Climate Interconnection

Starting from the concept of climate interconnection, we focused our perspectiveon the Sahara, the largest source of dust in the world, took it as the center of the world, re-projected and drew a world map that conforms to our philosophical view, and regarded it as a blueprint of the experiment.

Building Climate Models

We cooperated with atmospheric scientists to carry out an ideogenetic artisticcreation through a special experiment of atmospheric physics, looking for the dust from the remote Sahara among the countless dust that passed us by.

Collecting Dust

With this ideal climate model, one of the countless Saharan aerosol dust will pass through Greece following an 800-kilometer-long dust cloud this winter, enter the Icelandic low pressure, arrive at the Mongolian-Siberian high pressure after being affected by the prevailing westerlies, and finally enter Beijing andcome to our side with the cold snap.