Transcoding the Earth Systems: Climate and Weather Models in Digital Games

The project explores how contemporary computer games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) aspire to create a “digital twin” of Earth by integrating geospatial imagery, real‑time meteorological data, machine vision, and cloud‑based computational pipelines. Rather than focusing on the representational claims to realism of these simulated worlds, the project examines their underlying image‑making logistics: the design protocols and imaging infrastructures that contribute to producing a navigable and plausible version of the planet. Combining design‑documentation analysis, media‑ethnographic approaches, and the collection of gameplay imagery, the project considers how these global models operate as technical images. It further explores the hypothesis that the rising prominence of climate and nature in games may be less an expression of environmental awareness or a drive toward photorealism than a repurposing of the cultural techniques that first made climate intelligible as a planetary, technically mediated image. The project is funded by the NOMIS Foundation.