A large-format "circular" comic created in collaboration with the Power2 project as part of a series of artistic responses to their research exploring the intersection of digital energy, digital technology and human emotions. This piece considers the digitalisation of the renewable energy industry from the point of view of those delivering and maintaining the infrastructure.
There was also an accompanying series of interactive public events, culminating in an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum "Digital Design Weekend 2023" and a paper published in the journal Geo: Geography & Environment "Electric feels: The role of visual methods in energy ‘futuring’" (2024).
My accompanying description of the piece:
"As an illustrator and science communicator, one of my favourite things to do when translating research into comics - aside from portraying the information itself while telling a story - is getting to play with the structure of the comics medium and design of the overall page to get across an idea.
The rotation of wind turbines seemed to resonate with the idea of how maintaining systems we rely on is a constant and often thankless job. This also lent itself to a clockwise circular narrative structure interacting with a recurring grid motif - a challenging "spin" on the traditional comic grid layout.
These contrasting elements of circles and squares visually represent the complexity of different technologies (and techno-cultures) interfacing across eras and professions, the tensions and feedback between automation and human labour, and of natural and technological landscapes. The ambiguity as to whether this is a clashing or complimentary dynamic is a question rich with creative possibilities and worthy of discussion as a society."
Development process with three separate A3 sheets merged together digitally.
V&A Museum, Digital Design Weekend 2023
