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Sarah Waterson
Hothouse | 2017
Hothouse. @ Scout Hall
Hothouse brings the weather system from Mount Kinabalu, Borneo to nurture a rare and fragile orchid, the Paphiopedilum Rothschildianum, named for the family who owns the world’s banks (including the Reserve Bank of Australia). This work invites the audience to consider the relationship between weather and capital, at a time where weather still impacts the global futures market, and where we are witnessing unprecedented changes in the Earth’s weather patterns. The installation provides an opportunity for reflecting on what aspects of culture we choose to feed and grow, regardless of the cost to the existing ecosystems, and explores the irony inherent in our technological solutions to support colonised landscapes
bio:
Sarah Waterson is a new media artist whose work deals with the influence of electronic technologies on subjectivities. Over the past 20 years she has exhibited interactive environments nationally and internationally. Recent works include: Laika’s Derive (Furtherfield, London and Carriageworks, Sydney): an interspecies data mapping system to translate dog sniffs into photographs; Axle Grind (Sydney): a robotic guitar triggered by roller derby players; and 33ºSouth: a three-channel generative audiovisual installation that juxtaposes the cities of Sydney (Australia) and Santiago (Chile) using a custom-made data mapping system and database (collaboration with Juan Francisco Salazar).
statement:
My current practice centres on developing data-driven artworks that produce poetic ecologies. This work critiques traditional politics and the power dynamics of knowledge through mapping. The emergent aesthetic and sense-making behaviours of the selected datasets create a system for generating meaning. Weatherscope is a reactive weather system designed to accept data via bluetooth and generate weather based on that data. In practical terms it consists of a bluetooth-enabled arduino board with custom electronics that control mist, water (precipitation) and lighting effects in a physical space.
Scout Hall
