Black Summer

In the “Black Summer” of 2019/2020, Australia had some of the worst bushfires in its history. More than 20% of the forested area of the continent was destroyed, more than a billion animals were killed along with significant human casualties. The meteorological satellite Himawari-8 observed this catastrophe from the far distance.

For this experimental animated documentary, terabytes of satellite data were processed with specially developed algorithms, combining visible light and infrared measurements with heat detection. Animated, the rendered images form a hypnotic stream, documenting the catastrophe like never seen before.