Miasma performed by the Veni Ensemble, Wetterfest, Vienna, 2001
Photo: Eva Pernes


Music: Juliet Palmer
Text: Josh Lacey

Miasma is about the weather. Miasma is about the remote chance of getting what you want.

Originally created as a multi-track work for two compact discs, Miasma utilises the random shuffle feature of two domestic CD players, combining twenty short dialogues by English writer Josh Lacey with forty-four music tracks in an endlessly changing remix. The dialogues use meteorological language to describe broader concerns, their randomisation reflecting the chaos and unpredictability of our relationship to the weather itself.

 "Usually I turn on the radio simply to find out what the weather is like outside. There are radio stations especially for this: you are guaranteed to hear the forecast within 10 minutes of tuning in. Another option is to buy a weather radio (a small, sensible cube of a radio that picks up a frequency broadcasting 24 hour hard-core weather reports). My roommate in Brooklyn would turn hers on whenever a storm was raging outside. The dull monotonous description of wave heights and wind speed was the drug the surfer in her craved."

— Juliet Palmer


"I like the idea of a cocooned listener, timid, unwilling to risk the outside world, preferring to get a description of the weather from the radio, rather than opening the door or looking out of the window. Ergonomic self-sufficient interior decoration — the sole chaotic interference is the random track. Similarly, weather epitomizes the randomness of life — and reminds us every day of the failure of human beings to be gods — we can’t determine the weather — nor even, with more than a few days grace, make an accurate prediction.

Could a relationship be plotted through changes in the weather: the passion of hot summer, the gentle death of autumn, the frigidity of snow, the resurrection of spring? How much does the weather affect our moods? And color our memories? How much are our other senses — taste smell, etc. — affected by the weather?

Is there one track of the 25 that the listener wants more than the others? Or is there an illusory 26th track, which contains the meaning of life, the holy grail, fulfillment, happiness, the gold at the rainbow’s end?

The idea of remoteness. That, by listening to weather forecasts, you are making yourself into a person to whom the weather really matters, i.e. a mariner, an explorer, rather than a city-dweller, to whom the weather does not make a huge difference; yes, a mood difference, but not life or death. So, we’re dreaming a situation in which our existence is dependent on the weather. If it snows, we freeze. If it doesn’t rain, we die of thirst, or our crops die. If the storm is heavy, the boat will tip over and we will drown."

— Josh Lacey


Miasma was commissioned as sound installation, radio work and CD work by New Zealand’s Artspace Gallery and broadcast on Concert FM (NZ)and ABC’s Listening Room (Australia), 1995.

Recorded tracks performed by:

Ned Boulting & Poppy Miller actors Inouk Demers guitar Mark Zaki viola
Peter Velikonja cor anglais David Claman electric bass Nancy Zeltsman marimba

1.    All live performers (2 actors & chamber ensemble)
2.    Live musicians, recorded voices (chamber ensemble & sound system w/ one CD player randomly playing CD 3)
3.    Live actors, live mixing of recorded music (2 actors, sound system w/ two CD players randomly mixing 2 copies of CD 2)
4.    Installation (weather TV, living room, sound system w/ 2 CD players randomly mixing CDs 1 & 2)
5.    Electroacoustic  playback (sound system w/ 2 CD players randomly mixing CDs 1 & 2, weather video/film)

CD 1 comprises 64 tracks: 33 music, 20 dialogues & 11 silences
CD 2 comprises 44 tracks: 33 music & 11 silences
CD 3 comprises 27 tracks: 20 dialogues & 7 silences

A short video of the installation from the Artspace Fourth Window CD-ROM

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