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Curator:	Maiju Loukola Timo Heinonen
Authors of Theme:	Maiju Loukola, Timo Heinonen
Designer / Architect of exhibition:	Johanna Hyrkäs
Institution:	Independent artists-researchers-curators

WEATHER STATION. staging sound

The exhibition explores the novel spaces and conditions of performative sound.

Weather Station is an exhibition of performative sound and sound art in which sound is approached as a spatial, temporal, multisensory, affective and transformative creator and activator of space.

From the themes of PQ'15 (Music Weather Politics), we have chosen „Weather“ as the starting point for our sound-based exhibition.

Sound is a performative and spatial element that, like the weather, is unpredictable, untamed, changing in unexpected ways, an effective mover and a circumstance that digs to the bone. The exhibition explores the role of sound as a scenographic factor in the performing arts in various multisensory ways.

Weather Station takes place at two sites – the exhibition space A4 at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace and on Ovocný Square, a public space located in the heart of Prague’s Old Town.

Weather Station presents four artistic works – two installations and two documentations.

Installation I
The Sound of Music (In a Box) Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace and Uhelny Square. By Kasperi Laine, Jani-Matti Salo, Ville Seppänen, Heidi Soidinsalo

It is an installation in two parts: an exhibit of weathered instruments at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, and a public space concert venue consisting of a cargo container on Ovocný Square.

The container will host musicians and sound artists who will create new and site-specific music for instruments that have been greatly and unpredictably altered by the container’s microclimate. Weather phenomena will include rain, snow, stifling heat, floods and winds, as well as all possible combinations of these weather conditions. Most instruments react to just slight changes in humidity, let alone these extremes that the container.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons will act as a measure of change. The composition, which is known to almost everyone, is a way of hearing how much the weather can affect the instruments’ tone. Over the course of several weeks, it will be interesting to see how this shift can turn Vivaldi’s piece into something new and different. Will it be recognizable until the very end, and if so, in what ways? Or will it change into a new piece with a new character?

As the instruments decay, the ways of creating music change as well. This is where the creativity and curiosity of the participating musicians and artists will play a great role: How to use an instrument that cannot be used in its original way? What kind of unexpected sounds will it produced when treated with an open mind?

Installation II
Melting Point, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. By Antti Mäkelä

It is an installation based on the use of hydrophones – microphones designed for underwater recording and for listening to underwater sounds. The installation utilizes the changing states of water – liquid, frozen, melting, evaporating – according to prevailing conditions. The sound installation recycles the continuous phase transitions of water, making them audible in the most spatial, multifaceted and nuanced ways.

Documentation I
The Water Tower – documentation of a work in progress, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. By Elina Lifländer, Nanni Vapaavuori, Leila Kourkia, Kristian Ekholm

Audiovisual documentation of ongoing project. The group Water Tower has taken over a disused water tower in Helsinki’s Lauttasaari neighbourhood that was slated for demolition, and turned it into a monumental instrument that can only be played with the whole body. The tower inside was dominated by an immense echo and an oxygen-scarce microclimate that affected the mind, voice and equilibrium. Playing the water tower is an opportunity to make spatially intense and wild sound.

Documentation II
Sound Forest – documentation of a work in progress, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. By Antti Nykyri

As part of his multidisciplinary artistic work and doctoral research, Antti Nykyri developed a concept for a spatial, interactive and participatory sound environment. This concept has been applied in different forms for several performances and installations.

The work is based on custom experimental sound sources and large boxes of gravel as tangible and playable sound sources. Grainy rain-like electronic sounds are directed and diffused all around the installation space, creating an acoustic environment that surrounds and transfixes the space. Boxes of gravel are used by performers or visitors as instruments for creating crackling, varying, musical sounds.

Weather Station is organised in collaboration with the Finnish Oistat Centre and funded by the Finnish Cultural Centre (SKR), the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (AVEK), the Kone Foundation, the Wihuri Foundation and the City of Helsinki Cultural Office.