Artists Talk - Janine Randerson, Stefan Marks and Rachel Shearer

On Friday 2nd February, Khoj organized an artist talk by sound artist Rachel Shearer, moving image artist Janine Randerson and creative technologist Stefan Marks from Aotearoa (New Zealand). The artists spoke about their project Ngā Raraunga o te Mākū: the data of moisture , which was on view at Khoj as part of the 28° North & Parallel Weathers exhibition.

A live-stream of weather data from the rapidly melting Haupapa glacier and lake in the Aoraki National Park sparks a set of underwater images and hydrophone sounds recorded in situ, signaling a cryosphere in crisis. The voice of Ron Bull, Kāi Tahu orator and project collaborator, gifts the te reo Māori (Māori language) names of weather phenomena to Haupapa glacier as the ice melts, releasing ancient breath and water.

Janine Randerson

Janine Randerson is an artmaker of video installations, 16mm films, sound and online artworks, and she often practices in collaboration with environmental scientists and community groups. Janine’s book Weather as Medium: Toward a Meteorological Art (MIT Press, 2018) focuses on modern and contemporary artworks that engage with our present and future weathers. Janine also facilitates art exhibitions, events and screening programmes.

Rachel Shearer

Rachel Shearer investigates sound as a medium through a range of sonic practices – site-specific and gallery based installations, composing, recording, writing as well as collaborating as a sound designer and composer for moving image and live performance events. Active as an experimental musician releasing audio publications both locally and internationally, Shearer’s work builds on her research, which explores practices related to a listening to the earth through Māori and Western frameworks.

Stefan Marks

Stefan Marks is a Creative Technologist in the School of Future Environments at Auckland University of Technology. His main areas of research are collaborative extended reality (XR) and data visualisation or, as he prefers to call it, “data-driven, immersive storytelling”. Stefan creates tools to turn complex or abstract information into visual, audible and other sensory forms to allow the human brain to perceive, discover and understand patterns and relations. Some of his projects have dealt with earthquake data, the human nasal cavity anatomy, and artificial neural network connectivity.

Commissioned by Khoj International Artists’ Association. Khoj's participation in World Weather Network is supported by the British Council’s Creative Commissions for Climate Action, a global programme exploring climate change through art, science and digital technology.

Part of the weather station: 28th North Parallel - find out more here.