Plate 1 William Hodges. A View of Cape Stephens with Water Spouts. 1776. Oil on canvas, 135.9 × 193 cm. Image © Ministry of Defence, Crown Copyright 2018.

 

Plate 2 John Constable. Clouds. 1822. Oil on paper on cardboard, 30 × 38 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Felton Bequest, 1938.

 

Plate 3 Alan Sonfist. Crystal Enclosure. 1965. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 4 Thorbjørn Lausten. Magnet. 2008. Installation view at ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany. Software and four video projections. Photograph: ONUK (ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe).

 

Plate 5 Billy Apple. Severe Tropical Storm 9301 Irma. 2015. Coded schema representing satellite data details the upgrading of the 1993 Pacific Ocean tropical storm to a severe status. Image courtesy of the Billy Apple® Archive.

 

Plate 6 Douglas Bagnall. Cloud Shape Classifier. 2006. Installation view at MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland. Software, projection, electronic buttons. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 7 Joyce Hinterding and David Haines. Earthstar. 2011. Installation view from Star Voyager, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). HD video projection, live sound, two custom VLF antennae, graphite- and polythene-coated copper wire, mixing desk, stereo speakers, and geodesic dome-shaped scent dispenser. Image courtesy of the artists.

 

Plate 8 Andrea Polli and Rod Gdovic. Energy Flow. 2016–2017. Rachel Carson Bridge, Pittsburgh. Photograph: Larry Rippel. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 9 Olafur Eliasson. The Weather Project. 2003. Installation view at Tate Modern, London. Monofrequency lights, projection foil, haze machines, mirror foil, aluminium, scaffolding, 26.7 × 22.3 × 155.44 m. Photograph: Andrew Dunkley and Marcus Leith. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © Olafur Eliasson.

 

Plate 10 Natalie Robertson. The Whispering of the Karaka Trees. 2000. Video stills. Images courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 11 Francis Alÿs (in collaboration with Julien Devaux). Tornado. 2000–2010. Single-channel video projection, 39 minutes, color, 5.1 surround sound. © Francis Alÿs. Image courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London.

 

Plate 12 Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski. Incompatible Elements. 2010. Still from media arts installation. Image courtesy of the artists.

 

Plate 13 Amy Howden-Chapman. Uncertainty Italicized. 2013–2014. Performance image at 2201 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 14 Layne Waerea. Bruce Pulman Park, Papakura, 2014. 2014. Part of Chasing Fog Club (est. 2014). Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 15 Ursula Biemann. Subatlantic. 2015. Video still. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 16 Karolina Sobecka. Cloud Machine. 2013. Commissioned as part of the Amateur Human and Nephologies exhibit at the V2 Institute for Unstable Media, Rotterdam. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Plate 17 Tomás Saraceno. Aerocene. 2015. Pilot launch at the White Sands Desert. Courtesy of the artist; Pinksummer Contemporary Art, Genoa; Tanya Bonakdar, New York; Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen; Esther Schipper, Berlin. © Photograph: Tomás Saraceno. Image courtesy of the artist.