In 2024 I undertook a second commission for the artist Josefina Nelimarkka. For The Cloud of Un/knowing, Josefina wanted to incorporate real-time weather and environmental data from the exhibition venue and use that data to control the soundscape within the space.
It was a really experimental idea, involving a multi-channel speaker system, interfaces with various types of weather instrumentation, and lots of collaboration with the artist and her musicians to achieve a soundscape that evolved throughout the day, bending and shaping sounds to the changing environment around the venue.
In the words of the artist:
In the exhibition, the cloud is a unique and fleeting moment, a continuous process guided by invisible streams of data. Real-time measurements from the Arctic regions, boreal forest, and a weather station on the roof of the museum create a beautiful, subtle unity in which video, sound and light are in constant motion.
The exhibition challenges us to accept the uncertainty and to take in information with all of our senses, giving us an opportunity to get closer to phenomena that we do not yet fully understand.
The artwork has subsequently gone on tour around a variety of short and longer-term installations. I worked with the artist to make the installation flexible, allowing for different sources of weather data to influence the sound.
This was a really nice project to work on – beautiful, inspiring and thought-provoking.
Grant Gibson 