Artist Statement

GEOPOLITICS OF MEDIA PUBLIC SPACE PROJECT

Weather Report is a highly compressed found-sound story, heard as a drifting voicemail message from a weather balloon. A hybrid 21-minute documentary collected and edited outdoors, where it is best heard walking with headphones. So go find a Walkman!

Janek Schaefer produced Weather Report during his trips to Minnesota as a McKnight Composer in Residence with the American Composers Forum. “I lived in Minneapolis in December 02 and June 03 where they love their diverse and often hostile weather, which was the catalyst for the project.

“My main ideas were to create and collect new sounds that were related to the concept of weather in the broadest sense; to document and research weather in the media; and to float recording equipment up on weather balloons in various ways. These processes were integral, as my focus was on sound ‘associated’ with the weather, rather than the weather itself.

“The weather balloons were used in three main ways. Firstly one icy winter’s morning I attached a mobile phone to receive and send low-resolution sound, letting it float away from the surface of a frozen Lake. Secondly using a digital Dictaphone I made time-lapse recordings of the sky by floating it 500ft above my lush metropolitan neighbourhood. Lastly a few all-American friends and I set out to shoot the balloon down Late one June afternoon, Leaving the sound to parachute back to earth. I Let the recordings speak for themselves, no effects, no EQ, just straight cut and splice collage where you can hear the edges of time. All temperatures in Fahrenheit!”

• Janek Schaefer‘s exploration into the nature of sound was revived while studying architecture at the Royal College of Art, London, UK. His work Recorded Delivery revealed a sound-activated recorders’ overnight journey through the British postal system for an exhibition with one-time postman Brian Eno.

Full document (PDF) p. 116