New Weather Station
Norman O. Houston Park, Baldwin Hills, 8th Council District
About the Artist
Consider the weather and water through a series of concerts and events with artists, musicians, scientists, and others who examine the phenomenon of weather modification in Los Angeles, all taking place in this geodesic dome. The space evokes a connection to California utopianism, and the topic examined is not wholly scientific, but often spiritual or cosmic.
Weather modification might seem sinister, yet the idea is common throughout the world on scales both vast and minute. Modern-day “cloud seeding” emerged in the western United States in 1946, when silver iodide was injected into rain clouds to increase precipitation. The first private weather-modification companies were born in the postwar era as public water utilities sought to fill reservoirs and increase snowpack. Despite the vast environmental changes that can be traced to weather modification, the companies that provided cloud seeding struggled to succeed or even prove that it worked.
—Irene Tsatsos
Member, Curatorial Committee
CURRENT:LA Water
CHRIS KALLMYER (b. 1985, Washington, D.C.; lives and works in LA) works with sound, places, and people. His work explores a participatory approach to making music through touch, taste, and process using everyday objects that point to who we are and where we live. Kallmyer has created projects featuring amplified sheep, spontaneous fanfares, music for cheese, sonic lawn care, installations in igloos, country music renditions of Devo’s hits, a guide to acoustical gardening, and a formula for new songs by Hall and Oates. He frequently collaborates with Machine Project, LA, and the LA-based modern-music collective wild Up. Kallmyer has presented projects nationally and internationally at the Biennial of the Americas, Denver; Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris; J. Paul Getty Museum, LA; Hammer Museum, LA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; among others. Visit the artist’s website.
About the Art
Working with sound, site, and communities, Chris Kallmyer examines the complex history of weather modification in Southern California in terms of weather, water infrastructure, and the changing arid city. For CURRENT, the artist has created New Weather Station, a 20-foot open-air geodesic dome to host a series of concerts and events featuring LA-based artists, designers, historians, urbanists, chefs, and thinkers and explore the intersection of water and weather modification.
See the Art:
Daily starting Sun, Jul 31, 5:30 am–10:30 pm
Artist events on Jul 31, Aug 11, 13 + 14
(see Related Events for details)