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Weather Engines
Hosted by: Onassis Stegi
April 01 - May 15, 2022
Mon-Sun 4:00 to 9:00 PM GMT 2
Syngrou Avenue 107-109, 11745
Athens, Greece
The Need for Climate Justice
The Weather Engines exhibition explores the poetics and the politics, the aesthetics and technologies of the environment, from the ground to the sky, and from the air to the atmosphere.
Enter the Weather Engines climate.
The weather is a dynamic system of pressure, temperature and humidity. What climate do you want to live in? If weather is engineered by humans, is it ‘natural’ after all? Can weather become human-made? From the 1st of April, weather storms Onassis Stegi and the National Observatory of Athens with talks, workshops, performances, and a large art exhibition comprised of sound and video installations, sculptures, films, and 3D-printed objects, taking as a starting point the climate crisis, the exploitation of extreme weather but also the urgent need to deal with these issues. The Onassis Stegi Weather Engines brings weather to the forefront, from April 1st to May 15th, 2022, inciting us to reflect on the poetics, politics, and technologies of the environment. Renowned and up-and-coming artists from across the globe contribute with their works, many of them on public view for the first time in this exhibition, curated by Daphne Dragona and Jussi Parikka. Seed bombing; a living sculpture made up of fungi; thermopolitics around temperature; a wild garden upon Mars; the weather cycle through Maori worldviews; a famous alpine glacier; corals bathed in blue light; pollen grains; water as perceived by Aztecs; the Colombian Amazon territory; politics of cold; dragonflies in various ecosystems; the sound of the ocean; these are just some of the – not necessarily – natural phenomena, events, and issues that the exhibition addresses.
The exhibition and the public program of talks, performances, and workshops explore weather as a complex system, as observation and control, as well as a lived experience. The projects and events refer to natural phenomena and climate change, past and contemporary strategies of engineering the weather, and different sociopolitical atmospheres in which we breathe and live. Approaching the models and systems of art as techniques of knowledge, Weather Engines addresses the need for climate justice and for embracing the surrounding more-than-human world(s). The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Words of Weather: A glossary which maps terms for a political ecology of experience and is available in selected bookstores, in English and Greek edition, edited by Jussi Parikka and Daphne Dragona and designed by Typical Organization. It’s time to speak about climate change and those elements that engineer our lives.
Credits
Curated by Daphne Dragona and Jussi Parikka
Coordination: Christos Carras
Production Management:Pasqua Vorgia
Exhibition Design: dragonas architecture studio
Scientific Advisory:Fiori-Anastasia Metallinou
Audiovisual Installations Coordination:Makis Faros
Technical Organization and Overview: Vassilis Charalambopoulos
European Projects and Networks Department: Dora Vougiouka, Vera Petmeza
Organized by Onassis Stegi
Participating artists:
Kat Austen, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, Felipe Castelblanco, Kent Chan, Coti K., DESIGN EARTH, Matthias Fritsch, Geocinema (Asia Bazdyrieva & Solveig Qu Suess), Abelardo Gil-Fournier & Jussi Parikka, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Hypercomf, Lito Kattou, Zissis Kotionis, Manifest Data Lab (Tom Corby, Gavin Baily, Jonathan Mackenzie, Louise Sime, Giles Lane, Erin Dickson, George Roussos), Barbara Marcel, Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter & Mark Peter Wright), Petros Moris, Sybille Neumeyer, Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot, Susan Schuppli, Rachel Shearer & Cathy Livermore, Denise Ferreira da Silva & Arjuna Neuman, Stefania Strouza, Superflux, Paky Vlassopoulou, Thomas Wrede Read more
Curatorial note
Weather Engines explores the poetics, politics, and technologies of the environment from the ground to the sky, and from soil to atmosphere.
Weather is a dynamic system of wind, pressure, temperature, and humidity, which affects both human and nonhuman worlds. It changes from moment to moment and differs from place to place, while being forecasted in the attempt to control its effects. Weather observation has turned out to be part of the attempts to modify weather from experimental military projects to technological responses to mitigate climate change. The weather, though, is more than any physical fact in meteorological knowledge. It can also refer to different atmospheres which can be metaphorical or political and related to breathing and living.
The Weather Engines exhibition features artistic works that ask questions of weather, the environment, and technological culture. The installations, images, as well as video, sound, and sculptural works take the climate crisis as a starting point, investigating the elements that engineer our lives. Heat and cold, wind and rain are discussed in relation to different geographical and political contexts from past to present and speculative futures. Oceans, clouds, and forests are acknowledged as life-sustaining engines creating the atmosphere that we are inhabiting but also affecting. Meteorological instruments as well as natural bioindicators are the focal point of works that explore how weather phenomena are captured and studied. Other projects examine and expose the exploitation and weaponization of bad or extreme weather.
The artworks outline an environmental aesthetics that also addresses climate justice. The exhibition brings to view the conflicts in describing, experiencing, and resisting colonial weather and atmospheres. In the age of human-changed climate, all weather is artificial. If all weather is made, then this also means that there is still the potential to struggle for the weathers and climates we would rather want to live in.
— Daphne Dragona, Jussi Parikka
About Daphne Dragona
Daphne Dragona is an independent curator and writer based in Berlin. In her work she addresses issues such as the ambiguities of connectivity, the challenges of the commons, and the role of technology in times of climate crisis. Her exhibitions have been hosted at the real or virtual premises of Onassis Stegi, LABoral, Aksioma, EMST (National Museum of Contemporary At, Athens), Akademie Schloss Solitude, and other institutions. Articles of hers have been published in various books, journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogs by the likes of Springer, Sternberg Press, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Dragona was part of the curatorial team of the transmediale festival from 2015 until 2019.
She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the University of Athens.
About Jussi Parikka
Jussi Parikka's work engages with the intersections of aesthetics, digital culture, and ecology. He is an academic and author, who is also involved in different curatorial and artistic collaborations such as with Abelardo Gil-Fournier. Parikka is currently Professor of Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University. He is also Visiting Professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) as well as at the Winchester School of Art (UK). His books include Insect Media (2010), Digital Contagions (2007/2016), A Geology of Media (2015), and A Slow, Contemporary Violence (2016). Recently he co-edited Photography Off the Scale (2021, with Tomáš Dvořák), and is the co-author of The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies (2022, with Lori Emerson and Darren Wershler). His book Operational Images is forthcoming in 2023. Weather Engines
Public Program
The opening of the Weather Engines exhibition includes a 3-day program comprised of talks, discussions, and performances. The program has also scheduled pop-up labs during May.
Building on the exhibition and beyond, the program addresses aesthetics and technologies of weather in the age of climate change.
Geoengineering, weaponization of weather but also discourses of justice and resistance are featured in this context.
Talks and performances are responses to the contemporary political atmosphere as much as poetic ways of expressing the deep interconnections between humans and nonhumans, scientific research and artistic work.
Friday, April 1st
Onassis Stegi
17:00 Welcome and opening words by Christos Carras (Executive Director of the Onassis Stegi) and the curators Daphne Dragona and Jussi Parikka
17:10 “What’s with the weather?”A talk on extreme weather phenomena and climate change by Christos Giannakopoulos (National Observatory of Athens) Response and discussion with writer and artist James Bridle (Aegina)
18:00 “Cold Matters,” Susan Schuppli (Goldsmiths, University of London)
A lecture on politics of temperature and questions of justice Discussion with Jussi Parikka.
19:00 “The Anthropogenic Weather of Nano-spectacular Space,” Jessika Kharzik (Beirut/Berlin) A sound performance probing the first anthropogenic space weather, artificial radiation belts, and the role of the military
19:30 Opening of Exhibition
Saturday, April 2nd
Onassis Stegi
14:30 Introduction by the curators Daphne Dragona and Jussi Parikka
14:40 “Casting the Ocean,” Matterlurgy (London) A performative multimedia presentation that explores how the ocean is cast, calculated, and modeled
15:00 “Aesthetics of Weather” “Sensing, Measuring, Perceiving: On the Aesthetics of Meteorology and Climate,” Birgit Schneider (University of Potsdam) “Political Atmospherics,” Tom Corby (University of Arts, London) Moderator: Jussi Parikka
16:15 “Weather Stories” “Whiteout,” Rosa Menkman (Amsterdam) A lecture performance about an exhausting snowstorm mountain hike and a weather station “Stories on Heat,” Kent Chan (Amsterdam/Singapore)
A storytelling performance that ruminates upon art's shared histories and futures with heat
17:00 Coffee Break
17:15 “Anthropogenic Weather,” Yuriko Furuhata (McGill University, Montreal) (prerecorded) A talk on past and contemporary strategies of engineering the weather 17:30 “Oceans of Eternity: A Contract Unto Extinction,” Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (The Westminster Law & Theory Lab, London) A performance lecture on water, Titian, and planetary death
18:00 “Ecological Justice” “Severe, widespread, long-term: Defining the crime of ecocide using visual and spatial evidence,” Nabil Ahmed (Trondheim Academy of Fine Art) "What Nature in the Rights of Nature?", Xenia Chiaramonte (ICI, Berlin) Moderator: Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
19.15 Coffee Break
19:30 “Weather as Weapon” “Border Weathers: The environment as weapon at the edges of Greece,” Stefanos Levidis (Athens) Response and discussion with Yannis Orestis Papadimitriou (The Manifold, Athens)
“Corpus Infinitum,” Denise Ferreira da Silva (prerecorded) A talk for the urge to turn towards an image of existence without separability
20:30 “The Forest Curriculum's Weather Stress Index,” The Forest Curriculum (Bangkok/Berlin/Barcelona) A closing talk on sensitivities and intelligences of the more than human world
Sunday, April 3rd
National Observatory of Athens
17:00 “Meteorosophy,” lecture-performance, Phoebe Giannisi
17:30 Welcome by Fiori-Anastasia Metallinou, Astrophysicist, Communication Manager at Thissio Visitor Center, National Observatory of Athens
Exhibition opening and guided tour with curators and artists present
18:45 & 20:15 “Listening Space,” audio outdoors performance, Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot
(exact time will be confirmed a few days earlier)
April 1-3
Onassis Stegi, 5th floor Foyer
“CO3(6)5,” installation by 3 137
Words of Weather: A glossary
Weather exists as an atmosphere that can be measured, as an environment that is lived, and as time in which we experience humidity, pressure, temperature, and visibility. What would be the appropriate terms of weather that speak to this trio of concerns – measure, experience, and time? Onassis Foundation presents Words of Weather: A glossary, a manual to navigate through the contemporary moment on the surface and in the air, on bodies, and in our environments. It examines how weather has significance as a reality defined through scientific models and technical sensors, while it is being felt differently and unevenly in different parts of the world. It studies the weather as an ecology taking in mind its technologies and affects, its scientific language and poetics, its phenomena and interpretations through various perspectives, cultures, and geographies. The Glossary, edited by Jussi Parikka and Daphne Dragona, provides familiar and unexpected terms as proposed and written by artists, philosophers, academics, and architects. The 216-page Greek edition and the 192-page English edition were designed by Typical Organization.
Text Contributors: Ryan Bishop, Benjamin Bratton, Holly Jean Buck, J. R. Carpenter, Sria Chatterjee, Sean Cubitt, Heather Davis, Daphne Dragona, Matthew Fuller, Geocinema (Asia Bazdyrieva & Solveig Suess), Olga Goriunova, Pujita Guha (for the Forest Curriculum), Orit Halpern, Eva Horn, Elise Misao Hunchuck, Lydia Kallipoliti, Adrian Lahoud, open-weather, Jussi Parikka, John Durham Peters, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Robert Gerard Pietrusko, Janine Randerson, Karolina Sobecka, The Weathering Collective (Tessa Zettel, Astrida Neimanis, Jennifer Mae Hamilton), May Ee Wong
Read more Words of Weather: A glossary | Onassis Foundation
Weather Engines is realized within the framework of Studiotopia network, co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.
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