Which Way the Wind Blows references a lyric from Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan, which was popularized by an anti-war protest group during the Vietnam War in the United States.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passingby.

Christina Rossetti

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Sugar Intervention and heightened US Marine presence starting in 1917
Veracruz, Veracruz
Battle of Veracruz during the Mexican Revolution, 1914
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Regarded as part of the Banana Wars, beginning in 1915
Nicaragua
Beginning in 1912 as part of the Banana Wars
Dominican Republic
the US Marines landed in 1916 and began an 8 year occupation as part of the Banana Wars
Seoul, Korea
In the aftermath of World War 2, Korea was placed under a temporary trusteeship between the USSR and United States, which was nullified during the political turmoil of the Cold War
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
After the outsing of militarily-installed president, the United States military were deployed to supress rebellion in what became known as the Dominican Civil War (also known as the April Revolution)
Grenada
In 1983 Grenada was invaded by the United States military, justified by fears of communist collaboration
Haiti (Haitian coup d'état)
In 1994, the UN authorized 'Operation Uphold Democracy', in which the United States military intervend to reinstate the democratically-elected president and overthrow the military regime
Panama
In 1989, the United States military invaded Panama to remove the military leader who had recently declared war against the United States in Operation Just Cause
Kabul, Afganistan
After the World Trade Center fell in 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan as part of the 'war on terror'
Baghdad, Iraq
In 2003, the United States led an invasion of the Republic of Iraq that began the Iraq War
Al-Tanf
Al-Tanf is a US military base located within the territory of the Syrian National Coalition, or the Syrian Opposition which was established in 2016
Chicago
Washington DC
*Note: this is a shortlist chosen by the artist and is not meant to represent a wholistic nor extensive view of US imperialism. Rather, it is an introductory attempt to draw an imperial history into a continuous narrative.

the
WindVane

Historic Weathervane of an eagle
1880 weathervane of an eagle; Connecticut.
Weathervane of lady liberty
1870 Columbia or Goddess of Liberty; Waltham, Massachusetts.
Historic Weathervane of an eagle
19th century weathervane of an eagle; Waltham, Massachusetts.

a short history
---
 The origins of the weathervane can be traced back to Ancient Greece, when the astronomer Andronikos built a tower topped with a bronze figure of Triton. After this original installment, it became stylish to top pre-Christian Roman villas with figures of gods or demi-gods. During the 9th century, roosters became emblematic atop Churches for their reference to Saint Peter. Etymologically, the English word fane referred to military or sovereign banners. In this etymology, the ensign of the house or castle was inscribed in metal, as it was more durable than a fabric banner. In the 1600s, the rebuilding of London post the great fire heralded new popularity to the vane. This architectural design was soon exported to the colonies. Though weathervanes and indicator vials were used before the mid-17th century in the American colonies, symbolic wind-telling devices became increasingly popular among the colonists, whose lives were deeply agricultural and sea-faring. However, it also became a symbol of American independence; now every (white) colonist could have a "coat of arms'' or divine symbol atop their house or barn.
The decorative piece atop the house or barn operated as a symbolic link to the sovereign authority. On the plantation, the overseer claims the right to look, and to visualize the plantation into an ordered space. Within the American agrarian scene, there is a visualization of the weather; and, if we read the weathervane as a symbolic translation of the claim to authority, there is a further claim to oversee and occupy the land.

What authority was (is) visualized through this barometric divination?



Call



three images of the triangle trade routes of the 1770s, the transatlantic undersea cables, and the north atlantic gyre

From left to right:
Triangular Trade Routes, Undersea Internet Cables, North Atlantic Gyres
all from wikicommons


We come to the question of medium. For this project, I consider the medium the transfer of data, visualized through digital or physical means. Wind direction is grabbed from a wide network of weather stations, satellites, and radars. The node at which the current weather data is accessed depends on the place that is called. This information is collected in real time, through a series of servers connecting with servers, computers interfacing with each other, calls and responses.
The Application Programming Interface is the (inter)face through which I collect weather information. To interact with the (inter)face, you make a call.
To call is to request, to demand, to cry.
The internet, like weather, is often considered intangible, and digital space a disembodied one. Yet, wireless connection is only used within local contexts; the internet is, fundamentally, wired. Your local router is connected to underground cables, which route to a carrier box, which connect to a regional center, which connect to other regional and national centers. What meaning can we glean from its material passage?

The first transatlantic telecommunications cable was laid on the ocean floor in 1858, and iterations of undersea telephone cable systems operated well into the 1970s. Today, transatlantic cables are all fiber optic. Though some telecommunication still operates on satellites, these submarine cables carry almost all of the global passage of data; the cloud is, fundamentally, infrastructural. The call I have made in Chicago passes undersea, underground, and through the air to the place I am calling to, and back again.

Along with the Suez canal and the American railroads, the cable was laid as part of the globalist project to connect.
Sitting now, under globalization's shadow, I trace the future-seeking tendencies of these European descendants to expansionism.

In Deep Down Tidal, Tabita Rezaire compares the paths that data passes along the seafloor to the Triangular Trade routes; from the 16th to 19th centuries, people from Africa were forcibly enslaved and sent to the Americas, where they labored on plantations to produce raw goods such as sugar and tobacco. These goods were then exported to New England and England, the manufactured products of which were then sent to Africa. This “triangle” of labor, manufacturing, and products is colloquially termed the “Triangular Trade.” This route was impacted by the North Atlantic Gyre, which causes a circular current in the pathing of the trade route. Although today data passes in multiple directions, the cables are still on the fringes of the gyre. The passage of data crosses the same ocean and traces the same routes as the Spanish explorers in 1492 and, later, slave ships throughout the next three centuries. There are over 35 thousand recorded voyages that carried enslaved Africans, whose forced labor made up the foundation of this trade; the global project is violent, and its violence echoes into the present. Although I am calling for the wind, the call is material, geographic, and grounded. It is grounded not only in the sense of physical material, but also in a history of labor, exploitation, and violence. What does a call which is propelled along these historic and geographic routes represent?



a picture of a weathervane and there is a box around it all that says weather

Weather



How do we understand wind - temporally, spatially, and sensorily? Wind has a history longer than humans, and washes over the Earth without regard for our temporal scale. How do we represent the wind? There is something divinatory in the intangible and incorporeal. We cannot see it, but we can see its effects, and we can measure it. We have trust in the presence of the wind. Often, wind carries an omen.

Similarly, here, within the empire’s borders, it is hard to see United States imperialism. Yet, we live in its effects; the world lives in the shadow of European expansionism and the transatlantic slave trade.
As one may imagine, the effective power that allowed for this did not dissipate as United States ratified itself. This power, or rather claim to power, has a new operation in the 21st century. Global hegemony requires power, and in an era of remote sensing military technology (like the present), this can be located within tactics of counter-insurgency. The importance of invisibility within this new complex of control has new effects in the era of counter-insurgent world order; remote bodies (often artificial) decide life and death, secret agencies topple governments in plain sight, all while the operation of these politics is, notably, invisible to the “insurgents”.
Invisibility begets inculpability. Historically, the United States has positioned itself as being "caught up" in foreign conflicts. Being pulled into war by external factors, often geographic and hyperobjectual, is a continuation of the violence. The United States can be positioned as being subject to various forces. In this way, wind not only can be used as a metaphor for United States imperialism, but a force that pushes, obscures, and creates conditions to support it.
The name of this project, Which Way the Wind Blows, references a lyric from Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan: “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” This song was popularized by the Weather Underground, a leftist anti-war protest group, during the Vietnam War in the United States, who named themselves after the same lyric. The namesake of this project points to the metaphor of the wind within an anti-state and anti-war context; there is a call to individual action, as well as a “changing of the winds” of political power.
The Vietnam War, colloquially referred to as the living room war, was one of the first times that the horrors of US imperialism was made visible - literally - to the white American public. The response of the CIA to domestic resistance at this time, especially to the Black Power movement, aided in a tactical precedent that has been instrumental in the US military invasions of the 21st century.

circle displaying nautical directions
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