TEXT:

Interior Weathers is an immersive sound and sculptural exhibition by Haseeb Ahmed. Central to Interior Weathers is the flow, temperature, and humidity of air within 1708. Ahmed’s sculptural intervention creates an ongoing cascade of chaotic but subtle atmospheric events. This weather system is produced by an air quality control sensor that manipulates climate control appliances and 1708’s air conditioning system. A polyrhythmic spoken and sound composition, produced in collaboration with musicians Heavy Color (Ben Cohen and Sam Woldenberg), encompasses the installation as a sensorial guide. Interior Weathers links the body and building as breathing systems and to the cultural significance of breath itself. 

Interior Weathers draws from one of the earliest philosophies of medicine, Humorism, where the human body was thought to be healthiest when there was a balance and stasis between four different fluid substances. The fluid substances, termed humors, are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Each humor carried associated qualities: hot, dry, wet, cold. In Interior Weathers, these qualities are referents to atmospheric conditions, as well as the four classical elements earth, water, fire, and air. An inherent four-fold symmetry emerges out of these systems of thought and inform the sculptural elements of the central installation as well as the localized soundscapes that permeate the gallery. 

While symmetry, balance, and stasis may be the exemplary state of a functional, predictable system Ahmed addresses the imbalance, fluctuation, and unpredictability of contemporary conditions of existence—at levels of the planetary, the built environment, and the human body. The movement of air in general exemplifies the myriad of phenomena that arise in natural systems in states far from equilibrium—for instance, the onset of a fever or the emergence of the vortex of a hurricane. In Interior Weathers, air is an artistic medium and a mediator—it carries meaning as much as it determines the respiratory parameters of one’s ability to experience the exhibition. Museums and galleries usually attempt to nullify fluctuations in weather happening outside, however, Ahmed applies circulation, temperature change, and the molecular phase transitions of air to create a chaotic interior weather system. Ahmed’s use of household machines, pre-existing infrastructure, and sound, gesture towards the development of a techno-poetics between the quotidian technological surrounds of modern society and the sublime, ineffable nature of air and wind.

Interior Weathers is the second of three planned collaborations between Heavy Color and Haseeb Ahmed. Heavy Color is Ben Cohen and Sam Woldenberg. 

Special thanks to Pieter Heremans, Jan Huygh of Atelier Vilvoorde, Harlan Levey Projects, and Petra Lafond, Hernan Vasquez, Ilias Kalisperakis and Panagiota Stamatopoulou of Up2Metric as part of a Mindspaces artist residency from the EU Science Technology and Arts (STARTS) initiative.

PROGRAM:

Engineering in Vision with Haseeb Ahmed and Dr. Stephen Fong
Closed Educational Conversation - Presentation and Q & A
Engineering in Vision is a videoconferencing series that connects K-12 classrooms with VCU Engineers in their labs. The purpose is to let students experience many types of engineering over multiple sessions so that they can gain a broad understanding of just how many opportunities exist in this field. For this session Ahmed will present the key points of his exhibition with a follow up with Dr. Stephen Fong connecting Interior Weathers to Environmental Engineering. At VCU Stephen Fong is the director of Center for Integrative Life Sciences Education; Director of Integrative Life Sciences Doctoral Program; co-Lead, iCubed Sustainable Food Access Core; and professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering.

"Fat Chew 2: Bubbles," a dialogic essay by James Beckett & Alison Nguyen was commissioned for ext.1708 Journal on the occasion of Interior Weathers.


Screening: The Wind Egg
As an extension to Haseeb Ahmed's site-specific immersive exhibition Interior Weathers, 1708 presented an earlier, significant project and its culminating video The Wind Egg (2016). This video became viewable at ext.1708 Projects on the concluding day of Ahmed's exhibition, Saturday, October 16, 2021.

Listening sessions of Heavy Color’s sound composition were presented throughout the exhibition’s duration.

Haseeb Ahmed (b. 1985, US) is a research-based artist living and working in Brussels, Belgium. He produces objects, site-specific installations, and films, and writes for various publications. His work is often collaborative and draws on tools and techniques from the hard sciences to produce artworks. Ahmed received his Masters in Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in sculpture and architecture. As a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy (Maastricht, NL), Ahmed won the Designers and Artists 4 Genomics Award with his work “The Fishbone Chapel” and initiated the project “Has the World Already Been Made?” with Daniel G. Baird, which has been exhibited internationally, including at the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA, Göteborg, SE). The trilogy of exhibitions surrounding his work “The Wind Egg” culminated with a solo exhibition at the M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (BE), curated by Nav Haq and the conclusion of his PhD in practice-based art from the University of Antwerp. Ahmed recently exhibited work at M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (BE) and ArtLab EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH) and is in residency at Science Gallery Venice (IT). In 2021, Ahmed will be exhibiting work in the Frestas Triennial (Frestas, BR), Fotograf Festival (Prague, CZ), CURRENT festival (Stuttgart, DE) and BANG Festival (Leuven, BE).

Heavy Color’s surreal and cinematic compositions explore spiritual jazz, traditional music, electronic and avant-psychedelia, spawning the description Post-World Music. Their first album Arise Ye Spiritual Machine (2014) re-contextualized archival music in a modern beat-tape format. River Passage (2018), a collaboration with musicians in Eastern Congo that combines elements of Afrobeat, minimalist Electronica, and futurist Hip Hop, spans physical environments, cultures and languages. In 2020 Heavy Color composed an original score for the film Invisible Hand, a documentary about the Rights of Nature Movement produced by Actor Mark Ruffalo. The resulting album, which blurred the line between minimalist chamber music and ambient electronic worlds was released by the experimental label, Curious Music.

In 2021 Heavy Color will release Soft Light, a recombination of 60’s spiritual jazz, meditations in pattern-based music, instrumental hip hop, and psychedelic pop. In addition to Soft Light, Heavy Color will release a suite of music composed and performed in the moments before, during and just after Sunrise and Sunset.