Invalid Data
For over 40 years, NASA satellites have been orbiting the Earth and taking high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface from a height of 700 kilometres. Scientists at Digital Earth Australia (DEA) use this data to detect environmental changes and to monitor the health of vegetation and water availability. They employ complex algorithms to remove atmospheric noise such as clouds and cloud shadow.
The result is a huge database of ‘invalid data’, an archive of 40 years of images of the most beautiful cloud formations. Grayson Cooke reversed the process and produced the photographs in his series using this invalid data. By concentrating on the clouds, algorithmically filtering out everything else, and using infrared light to render the images, he brings to light what is considered by DEA to be superfluous; dramatic colour spaces and atmospheric textures that are normally invisible. In this way, we see and feel the forces that shape the Earth in a whole new way.
Made possible by Geoscience Australia, Digital Earth Australia programme and the NCI National Computational Infrastructure.
