A proposition: Entertain the environment.

A technique: Sentimental construction.

A process: Register the environmental conditions in a series of relational cross-currents. Make felt how the simple presence of movement in the space affects not only the space itself, but the nature of the work. Ruffle the presupposition that the human is necessarily at the center of this activation. Enfold the participant in an active ecology of the world, attuning to its difference. Do not place the participant in the role of direct activator of change. Sense, compose, dress, architect.

Description: Weather Patterns puts in counterpoint a number of materials, concepts, and conditions that affect one another over long stretches of time. The feedback loops between animated sound and air currents (across 50 meters of individually activated speakers and fans), fabric and electromagnetic fields (hundreds of yards of reconfigurable, conductive textiles, some with embedded sensors), scrambled texts and formalist projections, movement and stasis and interaction, are never fully revealed. The piece rather amplifies a relational field where matter and its matters continuously take account, and change.

Artists: Erin Manning, Nathaniel Stern, Brian Massumi, Nicole Ridgway, Bryan Cera, C. Matthew Luther, and Nirmal Raja.

Here is a binaural recording of moving sound in and around the fabric, sensors, speakers and fans. It’s best listened to with headphones. AIFF or MP3.

Thanks go to Jonah Brucker-Cohen for technical assistance via his SpeakerPhone design.