Visualizations of music, creative takes on notation and physical data art are all running fixations here at Brain Pickings. Naturally, the work of Boston-based artist Nathalie Miebach, one of this year’s crop of extraordinary TED Global Fellows, is an instant favorite. Miebach translates weather and climate change data from cities into musical scores, which she then translates into vibrant, whimsical sculptures and uses them as the basis for collaboration with musicians across a wide spectrum of styles and genres.

Musical notation allows me a more nuanced way of translating information without compromising it.” She uses these scores to collaborate with musicians across a wide spectrum of styles and genres.” ~ Nathalie Miebach

Each sculpture not only maps the meteorological landscape of a specific time and place, but is also a fully functional musical score to be played and interpreted by musicans on instruments as varied as piano, French horn and electrican guitar. You can hear and download the resulting tracks on Miebach’s site.

Miebach uses basket-weaving techniques and materials to interpret the data in three-dimensional space, using the lens of art and craft to look at scientific with new eyes and glean new understanding.

What I like about this work is that it challenges our assumption about what kind of visual vocabulary belongs in art versus science.” ~ Nathalie Miebach

Together, Miebach’s sculptures explore the fascinating intersection of art and science — another recurring theme here — with equal parts poetry and precision, making science more accessible and art more cerebral — a pinnacle of the cross-pollination of disciplines at the heart of Brain Pickings.