Playing the Weather

Installed at Block Space, Feb 2009

Playing the Weather was an installation realisation of the score Playing the Weather held at BLOC Space in February 2009. Six repeating loops of glockenspiel, guitar feedback, organ drones, circuit bent casio tones and acoustic guitar dyads (two note chords) were prepared, deriving their notes from the procedures described in the playing the weather score. The visual element of the installation had three parts. Firstly, the equipment itself, six CD players (one for each loop to facilitate them falling out of sync), DVD players and projectors, the PA system and its speakers. The speakers in each corner, with their leads radiating from a central anarchic pile of the equipment. Secondly a wall display of the newspaper pages from which the notes were derived and the transcriptions I made from them and a collection of quotes and the score by way of explanation of what was going on. Finally, two projections of world satellite weather imaginary lifted from the met office website, offering a backdrop which changes slowly and subtly, like the music. An unplanned consequence of using the projectors as the sole lighting was a rather eerie, cold light, this was coupled with the timing of the exhibition in the middle of a particularly cold snap with frozen snow all around the entrance to the gallery.

Postscript Nov 25

In refreshing these pages and sifting through the archive I came across the original loop files used in the installation (burned onto CDrs back then) and decided to resurrect another idea. On an old version of the website I had a small flash application that would play loops. I've written more about resurrecting that for modern WebAudio here [insert link]. It proves the ideal vehicle to hear something of what the installation sounded like