Work details
Augury: Divinatory Interfaces, 2026 Interactive sound-and-light installation Live weather data, light, multichannel sound, surface transducers, touch-sensitive obsidian, canvases, Smoking Mirror, display
MO Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania Group exhibition How to Feel Real, co-presented with ZKM 8 October 2026 – August 2027
In collaboration with light artist Anton Filatov Produced with support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen Kulttuurirahasto) and BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts
Short description
Augury: Divinatory Interfaces treats the weather as an oracle. Live atmospheric data from Vilnius moves the installation through five states of light, sound and touch. Visitors lay their hands on obsidian, canvases and a Smoking Mirror to receive a reading of the present sky or a forecast of what is coming. Drawing on Roman and Etruscan augury and the Mesoamerican obsidian mirror of Tezcatlipoca, the work asks how we might listen to the atmosphere again, not to control it, but to attune to it.
About the work
For most of human history, reading the sky was a way of knowing. Roman and Etruscan augurs watched the flight of birds, the direction of wind and the sudden turn of weather to interpret what the gods intended. In Mesoamerica, polished obsidian mirrors associated with Tezcatlipoca, the "Smoking Mirror", were surfaces through which hidden forces could be seen. In both traditions, attention to the atmosphere was a practice, a form of listening.
Today the sky is measured continuously. Satellites, stations and models produce a constant stream of numbers that predict the weather with growing precision, yet we rarely feel it. Augury: Divinatory Interfaces sits in this gap between data and sensation. It takes live meteorological data for Vilnius and turns it back into something that can be heard, seen and touched.
The installation does not illustrate the weather; it interprets it. Wind, humidity, pressure and cloud cover are translated into shifting atmospheres of light and sound, and into oracle-like readings that answer the visitor's touch. Data becomes an omen. The interface becomes a ritual object.
The work belongs to my practice-based doctoral research at Aalto University on weather attunement, atmospheric listening and divinatory interfaces. It asks what it would mean to approach climate and weather not only through prediction and control, but through attention, intuition and care.
Experiencing the installation
The installation is never the same twice. Every few minutes it reads the current weather over Vilnius and settles into one of five atmospheric states:
- Clear — open, still and luminous; light breathes slowly and sound is spacious.
- Building — pressure gathers; tones thicken and light grows denser.
- Dissipate — tension releases; textures thin out and fade.
- Fog — the room softens and blurs; sound becomes muffled and close.
- Turbulent — wind and instability; light flickers and sound moves restlessly through the space.
Around the room, visitors find points of contact:
- Obsidian podiums — touching the volcanic glass triggers a reading of the present atmospheric state, answered in light and sound.
- Canvases — an aeolian harp and a tubo cochleato (spiral tube) act as resonant surfaces, turning touch and vibration into sound.
- The Smoking Mirror — an obsidian mirror that responds to touch with a forecast, a reading of what the sky is about to do.
- Light composition — tubes on the walls and on a diagonal pole element, developed with light artist Anton Filatov, carry the changing atmosphere through the room.
Over the eleven months of the exhibition, the work moves with the seasons of Vilnius, from autumn fog to winter storms to summer light. Each visitor adds their own sounds and questions, so the piece keeps unfolding as long as it is open.
Technical description
The work runs autonomously for the full exhibition, driven by a live weather feed and maintained remotely.
- Data: live Open-Meteo forecast and current conditions for Vilnius, processed by a Python pipeline that classifies the sky into five states.
- Sound: a generative composition running on a Mac mini M4 through a MOTU UltraLite MK5 interface, with surface transducer speakers turning objects into resonating bodies.
- Light: eight LED tubes (four wall-mounted, four on a diagonal pole element), controlled via WLED and Art-Net, with light composition in Resolume Arena.
- Touch: capacitive electrodes in the obsidian podiums, canvases and the Smoking Mirror.
- Visuals and text: the Anemograph, a portrait-format display with GLSL shaders and a text oracle drawing from a bank of verses written for each atmospheric state.
- Fabrication: laser-cut acrylic, 3D-printed mounts and custom podiums.
- Remote care: networked monitoring allows the work to be checked and adjusted from abroad throughout the exhibition.
Process
Augury was developed over a summer of travel between residencies and workshops, following the weather from city to city.
- Riga, June 2026 — at Baltic Analog Lab, the light circuits were designed, surface transducer speakers tested and the first sketches of the sound composition made.
- Berlin, July–August 2026 — fabrication: laser-cut acrylic, LED spots for the podiums, cabling and stress-testing of the lights, and the light composition developed with Anton Filatov alongside the sound sketch.
- Helsinki, August 2026 — the canvases were prepared and sent from Aalto University to Vilnius.
- Bergen, September 2026 — a residency at BEK to finalise the sound composition, the Anemograph, the data pipeline and the interaction design.
- Vilnius, October 2026 — an intense install week at MO Museum, made possible by the museum's staff, before the opening on 8 October.
Media captions
Use these under each photo, video and sound file; replace the bracketed parts.
Photos
- Augury: Divinatory Interfaces, 2026. Installation view, How to Feel Real, MO Museum, Vilnius. Photo: Domas Rimeika.
- Augury: Divinatory Interfaces, 2026. Installation view, How to Feel Real, MO Museum, Vilnius. Photo: Laurynas Skeisgiela.
- Juan Duarte Regino with Augury: Divinatory Interfaces, MO Museum, Vilnius, 2026. Photo: [Domas Rimeika / Laurynas Skeisgiela].
- Detail: obsidian podium. Photo: [name].
- Detail: the Smoking Mirror. Photo: [name].
Video
- Augury: Divinatory Interfaces — installation documentation, MO Museum, Vilnius, 2026. [Duration]. Video: [name].
- Install week at MO Museum, October 2026. Process footage.
Sound
- Atmospheric state recordings: Clear, Building, Dissipate, Fog, Turbulent. Excerpts from the generative composition, recorded [date/place]. Best heard on headphones.
- Visitor interaction: touch on the obsidian podium and the canvases, recorded in the exhibition space.
Credits
| Role | Name |
|---|---|
| Concept, sound, interaction, software | Juan Duarte Regino (Finland/Mexico) |
| Light collaboration | Anton Filatov |
| Exhibition | How to Feel Real, MO Museum, Vilnius, co-presented with ZKM |
| Production support | Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen Kulttuurirahasto); BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts |
| Residencies | Baltic Analog Lab, Riga; BEK, Bergen |
| Photography | Domas Rimeika, Laurynas Skeisgiela |
Thanks to the MO Museum team for their support during installation.