Atmospheric Encounters at Birmingham Open Media

Atmospheric Encounters brought the long-running High Altitude Bioprospecting (HAB) project back to Birmingham Open Media from 19 May to 28 August 2021. The exhibition drew together artists, scientists, engineers, and researchers working on questions of airborne microbial life, treating the atmosphere as both a shared environment and a site of uncertainty sharpened by the pandemic.

Alex May’s contribution included Alchemy of Knowledge, a work shaped by the HAB team’s investigation of extreme environments and by the attempt to sense, sample, and interpret what usually remains invisible. At Birmingham Open Media, that sat alongside new developments in the wider project, including the second iteration of the HAB sampling device created during Oliver de Peyer’s robotic engineering residency. The exhibition made clear how scientific instrumentation, collaboration, and speculation were all part of the same enquiry.

For May, the exhibition connected directly to a wider practice concerned with the unstable boundary between observation and interpretation. Rather than presenting data or imaging as neutral records, Atmospheric Encounters asked how technology changes what can be detected, translated, and believed. The HAB team for this phase of the project included Melissa Grant, Oliver de Peyer, Hannah Imlach, Anna Dumitriu, Alex May, Paul Shepherd, Heidi Pietarinen, Till Bovermann, Anne Yoncha, and Noora Sandgren.