Julieanna Preston, Janine Randerson, Indrajan Banerjee, Mick Douglas and Felipe Cervera. Nephelometric Bodies [performance video} at PSi ASSEMBLAGE Conference, London, 19 June 2024.

Take a breath. Hold it. Let the breath go. In that space, record the taste, texture, flavour and life of the air you ingested and released on a shared drawing board. 

Nephelometers are air quality instruments used to monitor particulate matter such as dusts, smokes, mists, and fumes. They are especially sensitive to the respirable fraction of dust. Nephelometeric Bodies is a collaborative and interactive creative work by a online community of five weather-watchersfrom New Delhi, LA, Aoteaora New Zealand, South-East Australia, and London. Weare no ordinary weather-watchers; we are highly attuned air quality sensing organs prone to dectect nuanced points of difference across moments falling successively into other moments. Inhaling our air, lipsserve as surface antennae to air humidity, tongueswrithe, coated by acidic and metalic tinctures, in snake-breath hisses.Ourteeth grindagainst the grit of air-borne soil, lungsspasm as alveolibecome cloggedby rougueparticles.Our breath meldsin the audibleand graphic release ofthe atmosphere of ourlocal environment laden withsigns of emerging weather crises. Tasting the air of oursurrounding environments repeatedly, we breathe erraticallyover four online meetings, while collectively drawingthesemicro-performancesin lines and marks. Our subjective, emotive and affective bodies betraytell-tale signs of the thick air offires, floods, and untenable heat.Ourbreathing gestureswarn, caution and foretell what is happening now;alarming even ourselves with thevisceralurgencyof our exhalations.

Nephelometeric Bodies offers an alternate and embodied perspective to scientific reportage based on the felt experience of local weather’s volatility and changeability. It builds upon the Word Weathers* and FORECAST**, large-scale collaborative performances led by Janine Randerson and Julieanna Preston, and distributed on the World Weather Network. 

* Preston, Randerson, Douglas, Waerea, Lock Banjeree, Cervea, et al. (2022). Word Weathers, online performance, commissioned by Te Tuhi for the World Weather Network, Multiple locations. https://worldweathernetwork.org/special_event/word-weathers/ 

**Preston, Waerea, and Douglas (2023). FORECAST as part of the exhibition Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear, curated by Janine Randerson, commissioned by Te Tuhi for the World Weather Network, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, https://tetuhi.art/exhibition/huarere-weather-eye-weather-ear-te-tuhi/. 

Link to video: https://vimeo.com/962956042?share=copy