The Weather War

Bigert & Bergström (SE)

The Weather War addresses problems faced worldwide due to global climate change. How do we behave to meet those challenges? Do we adapt? Or do we wage war against increasingly aggressive weather phenomena? Bangladesh is building protective walls against coming floods. China shoots rockets into threatening clouds. And in Italy, anti-hail cannons are fired to protect the year’s wine harvest.

The film The Weather War tracks the history and contemporary struggle, between man and man-made climate, as we approach the tipping point. Together with the Canadian storm chaser and meteorologist Mark Robinson, Bigert & Bergström travelled to the Midwest in the US, to film and document the increasingly hostile weather patterns that are developing today.

In a blend of land art performance and road movie, the artists journey to the American tornado belt with their special machinesculpture, the Tornado Diverter. The goal: to stop a tornado. The film incorporates historical examples of how the science of meteorology developed in symbiosis with military goals, and how these visions evolved into modern ideas of geoengineering. These are controversial ideas with socio-political consequences, spotlighting the big question of who is really entitled to modify weather.

About the artist: 

Bigert & Bergström are an artist duo living and working in Stockholm, Sweden. Throughout their career, Bigert & Bergström have produced and created art ranging from large-scale installations and public works, to sculptures and film projects. Often with a conceptual edge, the core of their work is placed at the junction between humanity, nature and technology, and investigates scientific and social topics discussed in contemporary society.