Sophie Dyer & Sasha Engelmann (open-weather) – when we image the earth, we imagine another

Sonic Acts Podcast

when we image the earth, we imagine another by Sophie Dyer & Sash Engelmann (open-weather) SONIC ACTS BIENNIAL 2022 15 October 2022 – Likeminds, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ‘As the weather image grew, Miel’s consciousness expanded, bending to the curvature of the Earth. Far from an out-of-body experience, the feeling was one of being profoundly situated: sandwiched between the sun-warmed Land, particle-laden air, cloud, satellite and cosmos.’ (S. Dyer, S. Engelmann, ‘When I image the earth, I imagine another’, Ecoes #3, Sonic Acts Press, 2022) Last year, on the first day of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, a network of people operating DIY satellite ground stations around the world captured a collective snapshot of the Earth and its weather systems: a ‘nowcast’ for an undecided future. Tuning into transmissions from three orbiting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, volunteers collected imagery and submitted field notes from their geographical locations. Combined, these contributions generated a feminist and fractal image of the Earth, and a record of conditions of climate crisis from Buenos Aires to Kinshasa to London. As open-weather, we ask: What does it mean to collectively image the Earth, and in doing so, reimagine the planet? Sonic Acts Biennial 2022 took place at various locations in Amsterdam, interweaving an exhibition, sound performances and discourse programme, accompanied by artist presentations, workshops, excursions and more. As a part of the Biennial programme, the Leaving Traces symposium opened up a forum in which to become attentive to pollution’s invisible, yet harmful touch. Actively rethinking our relation to the climate and our planetary legacies, an array of artists, researchers, curators, and scholars spoke of the many faces of toxicity – from fossil fuels to plastic, from nuclear energy to chemical pollutants. The gathering staged real stories and events of exposure, thinking about ‘leaving traces’ not just as the material act of spreading toxicity, but as art’s potential to reach out and act as a disruptive force in the world. Find out more at https://sonicacts.com/archive/biennial2022 https://open-weather.community Curation & production: Sonic Acts Recording: Engage! TV https://engagetv.com Sound mastering: Monty Mouw http://flippendisks.com Design: Catalogtree https://catalogtree.net Sound logo: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros http://www.vivapunani.org/