Janine Randerson – Weather as Medium: Toward a Meteorological Art

janine-randerson-weather-as-medium

The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262038270, English, 280 pages, 2018, USA

Weather has a special place at the intersection of art and science, from picturing it as a vigorous, elemental aesthetic that has inspired countless artists and writers, to scientific attempts to try and control the medium, through to an array of sometimes bizarre, and at time potentially dangerous futuristic technologies. So too, while we live in an era of ‘climate crisis’ it is vital that we grapple it and recognise that “art has agency” in relation to this issue. Randerson has investigated these meteorological topics for some time as an artist, curator and researcher. This transdisciplinary engagement is immediately clear from the book’s invaluable introduction, which provides a crash course in the history of weather-related art. The concept of weather as medium is a strategic compass to orientate the reader in relation to the discrete artworks discussed, going back to the prolific production of artworks in the 1960s. These art works explore the weather as a set of dynamic forces operating outside us, and often repurpose or reinvent scientific tools and instruments. The theories of Rosi Braidotti and Naomi Klein provide further context for art and environmental agency. This book is meticulously researched and accurately written, providing an absolute reference text in in Art|Science academic publications.