Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Dark Sun: Solar Frequencies, Solar Affects

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Animism in Art and Performance

  • 739 Accesses

Abstract

Randerson and Shearer suggest that a growing number of contemporary art projects treat the sun as alive, a life force and a threat to life. The authors suggest that the sun’s energy, mediated through artworks, produces transformative solar affects. The focus is on artworks that draw on the figure of the sun as an animating force to foreground an ecopolitical agenda. Artists Joyce Hinterding and David Haines’s recent performance and video installations distil frequencies from the sun through electro-magnetic radio instruments and a hydrogen-alpha telescope. Rachel Shearer engineers solar-powered soundworks, such as Wiriwiri (2017) and a comparison is with several paintings by Māori artist Ralph Hotere. Crucially, the sun is positioned as an animate being with mauri (life force) drawing on Māori cosmology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Best, Elsdon. 1904. Miscellaneous, Art II. Notes on Ancient Polynesian Migrants or Voyagers to New Zealand, and Voyage of the Aratawhao Canoe to Hawaiki. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 37: 121–138. Accessed 1 June 2017. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/TPRSNZ1904-37.2.11.1.2.

  • Best, Elsdon. 1922. The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, Genuine and Empirical. Dominion Museum Monograph, 3. Wellington: W.A.G. Skinner, Government Printer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biggs, Bruce. 1994. Knowledge as Allegory. Science of Pacific Island Peoples: Education, Language, Patterns & Policy 4: 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Mel. 2012. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cherry, John. 1992. Animism in Thought and Language. Ph.D. thesis, Berkeley, University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crary, Jonathan. 1998. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crowe, Andrew. 2015. Which New Zealand Insect?, 2nd ed. New Zealand: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. 2011. Heliotropes: Solar Ecologies and Pacific Radiations. In Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment, ed. Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilmurray, Jonathan. 2016. Introduction to Environmental Sound Artists by F. Bianchi and V.J. Manzo. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Lucie. 2016. 15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun. London and New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hainge, Greg. 2013. Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise. New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haines, David, and Joyce Hinterding, Joyce. 2017. Transmission From the Sun. In Exhibition Heat Solar Revolutions: Performance Programme, curated by Janine Randerson and Amanda Yates. Auckland: Te Uru Public Gallery. 18 Feb 2017. http://teuru.org.nz/index.cfm/whats-on/events/heat-performance-programme/.

  • Hansen, Mark B.N. 2006. New Philosophy for New Media. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henare, Mānuka. 2001. Tapu, Mana, Mauri, Hau, Wairua: A Maori Philosophy of Vitalism and Cosmos. In Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community, ed. J. Grimm, 197–221. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Centre for the Study of World Religions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn, Douglas. 2013. Earth Sound Earth Signal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, Julia. 1987. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruger, Tāmati. 1984. “The Qualities of Ihi, Wehi and Wana” In Nga Tikanga Tuku Iho a te Māori, Customary Concepts of the Māori, ed. H.M. Mead. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lanza, Joseph. 1994. Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong. New York: Picador.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livermore, Cathy. 2017. Email communication with Rachel Shearer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livermore, Cathy. 2016. Dancing from Te Kore into Te Ao Marama. Te Kaharoa, e-journal of Indigenous Pacific Issues, 9: 55–63. Accessed 5 May 2017. doi: 10.24135/tekaharoa.v9i1.9.

  • Matthews, Nathan. 2004. The Physicality of Māori Message Transmission: Ko te tinana, he waka tuku korero. Junctures, 3 Dec. Accessed 5 May 2017. http://www.junctures.org/index.php/junctures.

  • Massumi, Brian. 1987. Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements. In Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, ed. A. Thousand. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual. Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, Māori. 2003. The Woven Universe. Otaki: Te Wananga-o-Raukawa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, Hirini Moko. 2016 [2003]. Tikanga Māori: Living By Māori Values. 2nd ed. Wellington: Huia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McQueen, Cilla. 2000. Dark Matter: Ralph Hotere and Language. In Ralph Hotere: Black Light: Major Works Including Collaborations with Bill Culbert.‬ Wellington: Te Papa Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ministry for the Environment (MfE). 2011. Rena: Long Term Recovery Environmental Plan, December 2011. New Zealand Government. Accessed 5 May 2017. http://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/rena-long-term-environmental-plan.pdf.

  • Moon, Paul. 2005. A Tohunga’s Natural World; Plants, Gardening and Food. Mangawhai: David Ling Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panoho, Rangihiroa. 2015. Hoeroa: The Long Traveller. In Maori Art: History, Architecture, Landscape and Theory. Auckland: Bateman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasquinelli, Matteo. 2015. On Solar Databases and the Exogenesis of Light. eflux. Accessed 10 April 2017. http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/texts/on-solar-databases-and-the-exogenesis-of-light/.

  • Patel, Kasha. 2014. More Than Meets the Eye: NASA Scientists Listen To Data. NASA website, 4 Sept. Accessed 10 April 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/more-than-meets-the-eye-nasa-scientists-listen-to-data/.

  • Plato. 1987. The Republic. Translated with an Introduction by Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. London and New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polli, Andrea. 2016. Sonifications of Global Environmental Data. In Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words, ed. F. Bianchi and V.J. Manzo. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polli, Andrea. 2017. Heat and the Heartbeat of the City: Central Park Climate Change in Sound. Artist’s website. Accessed 8 May 2017. http://www.andreapolli.com/centralpark/main.html.

  • Pound, Francis. 2000. Tiger Country. In Ralph Hotere: Black Light: Major Works Including Collaborations with Bill Culbert.‬ Wellington: Te Papa Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Randerson, Janine, and Amanda Yates. 2017. Heat: solar revolutions. Exhibition at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, 14 Feb–17 April. See http://www.teuru.org.nz/index.cfm/whats-on/calendar/heat-solar-revolutions/.

  • Shearer, Rachel. 2017. Wiriwiri. Solar powered sound installation at Heat: Solar revolutions. Exhibition at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 14 Feb–17 April.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schafer, R. Murray. 1994 [1977]. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shirres, Michael P. 1997. Te Tangata: The Human Person. Auckland: Accent Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spinoza, Benedictus de. 1985. The Collected Works of Spinoza Volumes I and II: Complete Digital Edition, trans. and collected by Edwin Curley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanford Solar Centre (SSC). 2008. Hear The Sun Sing. Accessed 1 May 2017. http://solar-centre.stanford.edu/singing/.

  • Sterne, Jonathan. 2012. Sonic Imaginations. The Sound Studies Reader, ed. J. Sterne. Oxford and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Te Matatini. 2017. Host - Te Kahu O Te Amorangi. Kapa Haka Aotearoa. Retrieved 7 April 2017. http://www.tematatini.co.nz/festival/host-and-venue/.

  • Thrift, Nigel. 2010. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. Oxford and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Art & Design, AUT University, Auckland CBD, New Zealand

    Janine Randerson & Rachel Shearer

Authors
  1. Janine Randerson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rachel Shearer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Janine Randerson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Art and Design, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Christopher Braddock

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Randerson, J., Shearer, R. (2017). Dark Sun: Solar Frequencies, Solar Affects. In: Braddock, C. (eds) Animism in Art and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66550-4_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation