Transcribing a Storm's Numbers into a Score, Then Weaving a Basket from It: Nathalie Miebach's Weather Data Sculptures

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0900

Nathalie Miebach makes sculptures that map weather data such as temperature, pressure, and wind speed onto the colors and positions of basket-weaving materials, and has musicians perform musical scores that transcribe the same data. She assigns the time of day and a temperature range to the basket’s vertical members, then weaves tide, water temperature, air temperature, and the moon phase into that grid. For her sculpture about Hurricane Noel in 2007, CSMonitor (2010) writes that temperature is red, pressure is green, and wind speed is blue, “and so on.”

What follows draws on Miebach’s TED talk “Art made of storms” (TEDGlobal 2011), the work descriptions and performance records on her own website, and a 2010 interview and newspaper article. The order of the process follows her talk: first the data is transcribed into a score, then that score serves as the blueprint for assembling the sculpture.

In 2000, Learning Basket Weaving and Astronomy at the Same Time

It began in 2000. Miebach took a local basket-weaving class and an astronomy course at Harvard University at the same time. Instead of a written final paper for the astronomy course, she handed in a basket representing the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the Christian Science Monitor (2010) reports.

She moved to weather in 2006, during a residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Cape Cod. Zach Smith, a climate educator at the Wright Center for Science Education, proposed a climate change project to her. She says she learned how to collect data while trying out the center’s instruments on the beach (ArtSake, 2010).

She describes how she collects data in her TED talk (recorded July 11, 2011, about 4 minutes). With instruments of the kind you can buy at a hardware store, she gathers information about a specific place. She checks it against satellite images and data from weather stations and offshore buoys, and gathers the numbers on a clipboard. From there, she starts with only two or three variables. The video of the talk can be watched on the TED page.

Assigning Time and Temperature to the Basket’s Grid

Miebach calls the basket a “medium of translation.” A basket is made of vertical and horizontal members. In her talk she explains that if you assign values to them, the change of data points over time takes shape as it is.

She assigns the time of day to the vertical members, so that one full turn is 24 hours. She assigns a temperature range to the same members. Into that grid she weaves high-tide readings, water temperature, air temperature, and the moon phase. On why she uses natural reed as her material, she says:

“I use natural reed, because natural reed has a lot of tension in it that I cannot fully control. That means that it is the numbers that control the form, not me.”

The reed has a tension she cannot fully control, so it is the numbers, not she herself, that decide the form: that is her explanation.

The correspondence between colors and variables is not described in the talk. The talk says only that “each colored bead or thread is one weather element.” There are two sources that spell out a specific correspondence, and both concern the work “Hurricane Noel,” about Hurricane Noel in November 2007.

The Christian Science Monitor (2010-04-09, Kendra Nordin) writes, of the sculpture “Hurricane Noel,” that in the vertical direction temperature is red, pressure is green, and wind speed is blue, “and so on.”
The two-dimensional score “Hurricane Noel” (2009) on her website gives, in a handwritten legend, the temperature at the Hyannis station as red, pressure as green, average wind speed as light blue, and gusts as dark blue.

In the score’s legend, red indicates only the temperature at Hyannis. I could not confirm the color schemes of her other works.

Data	What it is mapped to	Source
Time of day (24 hours)	The basket’s vertical members; one turn is one day	TED talk
Temperature range	The same vertical members	TED talk
High tide, water temperature, air temperature, moon phase	Members woven into the grid	TED talk
Temperature, pressure, wind speed	Color of the reed in the vertical direction (red, green, blue)	CSMonitor 2010
Rises and falls of readings	Distortions of the colored reed, that is, the shape of the sculpture	CSMonitor 2010
Time periods of the storm’s cycle	Spokes radiating from the central cone	CSMonitor 2010
Type of weather element	Range of pitch in the score (one octave per element)	CSMonitor 2010
Temperature values	Pitch in the score (one pitch per temperature)	CSMonitor 2010

The data came from stations in Hyannis and in Natashquan, Quebec, and from a buoy in the Gulf of Maine (CSMonitor).

Transcribing into a Score, Then Assembling from It as a Blueprint

This work is sometimes introduced as “a sculpture that also becomes a score,” and the TED description likewise says the sculpture “becomes a score for string quartet.” In her own talk the order is the reverse: she says she first transcribes the weather data into a score.

“Meanwhile, I use these scores as blueprints to translate into sculptural forms like this, … so it can actually be read as a musical score.”

She uses that score as a blueprint and turns it into a sculpture, she explains. The sculpture contains the score’s grid inside it, so it can also be read as a score.

Other sources give the same order. ArtSake (2010-03-10) describes the project as translating data “first into a musical score, then into a sculpture.” In her artist statement (published by the Schick Art Gallery at Skidmore College), she says she transcribes the numbers onto score paper in pictorial form. The musicians interpret it as a piece of music, and Miebach interprets it as a sculpture. The score’s title also reads “Score for Musicians and Sculptor.”

A handwritten score on graph paper, with time on the horizontal axis and scales for wind, temperature, and pressure on the vertical axis, and red, green, and blue square notes lined up in bands

Source: Nathalie Miebach, “Hurricane Noel” (2009), from nathaliemiebach.com, Musical Scores 2D

The horizontal axis of this score is marked with times from November 2 to 5, 2007. The legend separates “Fixed Notes” from “Flexible Regions.” The distinction is that the notes representing observed values are not to be changed, while regions such as cloud cover may be interpreted by the performers.

A three-dimensional work in which red, blue, and light-blue rods and beads and number tags such as “65°F” are attached around a woven reed basket

Source: Nathalie Miebach, “Hurricane Noel III” (2015), from nathaliemiebach.com, Musical Scores 3D

Her website calls such sculptures “3D musical score.”

Work	Year	Description on her website
Hurricane Noel	2010	Passage through the Gulf of Maine, November 6-8, 2007
Hurricane Noel III	2015	Passage through New England, November 2-5, 2007. Two stations and one ocean buoy
Sun Gnomon for Stormy Night	2009	A three-dimensional score based on the two-dimensional score “Stormy Weather, Internal Storm”

A two-page score in which red and green dots, blue wavy lines, wind-direction arrows, and handwritten words are drawn over staff lines and vertical time lines

Source: Nathalie Miebach, “Stormy Weather, Internal Storm” (2012), from nathaliemiebach.com, Musical Scores 2D

A three-dimensional work in which clusters of orange beads, a green net, and yellow ladder-like legs are attached around a cone and a disc woven from reed

Source: Nathalie Miebach, “Sun Gnomon for Stormy Night – Nov 13-19, 2008” (2009), from nathaliemiebach.com, Musical Scores 3D

The years and periods differ among the sources.

Point	What each source says
Period of Hurricane Noel	The two-dimensional score and “III” give November 2-5. The 2010 sculpture, and “Musical Buoy in Search Towards a New Shore” (a work with a different title) in The Marginalian (2011), give November 6-8
Year of Hurricane Noel	The Chipstone Foundation says “Noel, 2006.” Her website gives 2009 for the score and 2010 and 2015 for the sculptures

Since the storm took place in November 2007, 2006 appears to be an error.

How Much to Leave to the Performers

Miebach tells ArtSake that she started making scores because the language of sculpture no longer expressed how she read her data. In her talk she also says that a score lets her translate in detail without losing information.

She also explains in ArtSake what she fixes and what she leaves to the performers.

“When I give musicians the score, I tell them what it’s about, what portions of the score are flexible and those that aren’t. Then I pretty much withdraw …”

Item	Who decides	Source
The notes themselves	Determined by the numbers the artist collected	ArtSake 2010
Tempo and rhythm	The artist uses them to add nuance to the translation	ArtSake 2010
Rhythm, tempo, number of instruments	Largely left to the performers	ArtSake 2010
The form of the piece (in the case of Axis Ensemble)	The performers made it a 15-minute piece. The only condition was “being faithful to the numbers”	CSMonitor 2010

On March 14, 2010, Axis Ensemble performed “Hurricane Noel” at the Lilypad in Cambridge. The lineup was piano, violin, accordion, clarinet, cello, and double bass (CSMonitor). Miebach tells ArtSake that after watching the rehearsal she spent two hours in her studio staring at her own sculpture.

Her website gives two purposes for the collaboration: to convey a layer of emotion that the sculpture has difficulty reaching, and to learn about the patterns and stories in the data that the musicians find.

This effort has continued since 2009 as “The Weather Score Project,” which, according to her website, comprises 20 commissioned works and more than 15 concerts.

The instrumentation also differs by source. The TED description says “string quartet,” but what appears in the talk is the trio “1913 Trio.” Who performed the Hurricane Noel music at the start of the talk is not stated in the talk or on the TED page.

How Third Parties Saw the Work

Here are three views, each with a different point. The first is the work profile “Sculpting The Floods” in Issues in Science and Technology (Winter 2026).

“Rather than visualizing data for clarity or communication, Miebach’s goal is to provide a different way of experiencing data—to make the complexities of natural systems physically and emotionally perceptible.”

The view is that the work is not a visualization for clarity or communication, but a way to let people sense the complexity of nature with body and emotion.

The artist herself stresses accuracy, in words quoted by Colossal (2016).

“Nothing is put on there for purely aesthetic reasons.”

That is, nothing is attached merely for looks. In the same article she also says she wants people to be able to read the weather from the sculpture. The third party’s positioning and the artist’s emphasis can be read as differing.

The second is the Christian Science Monitor (2010) interview article.

“But behind the joyful chaos is a precise order, one of surprising complexity and magnitude.”

Behind the toy-like appearance lies a precise order, the review says. In the same article Miebach herself says the playful elements are there to draw viewers in, and that on closer look they realize everything is numbers.

The third is a catalog from the visualization research side. The “List of Physical Visualizations,” edited by Pierre Dragicevic and Yvonne Jansen on dataphys.org, lists Miebach’s basket-weaving sculptures as an entry for 2006 and classifies them as “Passive physical visualization.” Jansen et al.’s evaluation experiments are covered in another article.

Takeaways

There are four judgments that can be carried over to visualization work.

The first is to narrow down the variables before putting them onto a material. From a bundle of numbers, Miebach first selects only two or three variables. When the amount a material can carry is limited, the act of selecting can itself be read as design.

The second is to make an intermediate notation the blueprint. Miebach first transcribed the data into a score and made that the source of both the sculpture and the performance. Deriving a form to look at and a form to listen to separately from one notation can be read as keeping the two pointed at the same data.

The third is to separate, within the notation, the parts that are fixed from the parts that are left to others. The Hurricane Noel score separates “Flexible Regions” in its legend and instructs the performers not to change the notes for observed values (Fixed Notes).

The fourth is to write the legend into the work itself. Hurricane Noel III carries number tags such as “65°F,” and the score has a color legend and the names of the stations. In her talk, Miebach said that in an art museum it becomes a sculpture, in a science museum a three-dimensional visualization, and in a concert hall a score. That it can be read wherever it is placed can be read as owing to the legend being inside the work.

As examples of passing the same data to sound or form, it can be read alongside Chemo Singing Bowl and The Tempestry Project.

References

Primary sources

Nathalie Miebach, “Art made of storms,” TEDGlobal 2011 (recorded 2011-07-11, published 2011-10-21). Talk page / Transcript
Nathalie Miebach, The Weather Score Project (performance records). nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, Musical Scores 2D. nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, Musical Scores 3D. nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, Storms, Gales and Blizzards. nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, The Sandy Rides. nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, Weather Sound Drawings. nathaliemiebach.com
Nathalie Miebach, Artist Statement, Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College. Statement
“Nathalie Miebach: weaving science, sculpture, and music,” ArtSake (Mass Cultural Council), 2010-03-10. Interview
Nathalie Miebach, Bruce D. Campbell, Francesca Samsel, “Nathalie Miebach: Sculpted Data Infused With Craftsmanship,” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 42(1): 7–16, 2022 (bibliographic record only checked). doi:10.1109/MCG.2021.3132092 / dblp

Secondary sources

Kendra Nordin, “Climate change as art,” Christian Science Monitor, 2010-04-09. Article
“Sculpting The Floods,” Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 2026. PDF
Pierre Dragicevic, Yvonne Jansen (eds.), “Nathalie Miebach’s Woven Sculptures,” List of Physical Visualizations. dataphys.org
Maria Popova, The Marginalian, 2011-07-12. Article
Colossal, 2016-03. Article
Chipstone Foundation, work description for the exhibition “The New Materiality.” Exhibition page

Weather Data on Visualizing.JP