CASCADE, 2009
- Dataprojection, cellulose projection screens and sound 

New Zealand-based new-media artist Janine Randerson explores the interface between the bio-system, meteorology and technology. In 2008 she was in Denmark for an art residency studying radio and satellite-tracking data of Arctic bird and mammal species at DMU.

Cascade presents projected images and sounds extracted from scientific mapping software, bio-sonar signals and shared videos of internet users that register the impacts that climate change has on the survival of Arctic animals and the system that sustains them. “Cascade” is a liquid metaphor; the effervescent beauty of falling water offers us a direct kind of ecstasy. Yet “Cascade” also refers to an ecological succession of impacts, each stage dependent on the one before it, where the insects or plants that larger animals depend on, is no longer matched with their pattern of migration. Scientist Jesper Madsen (DMU) has described a ‘cascade’ of Arctic impacts across the “entire eco-system, climate, geo-physics, abiotic factors, the biological and marine system”.

For RETHINK, Cascade suggests that a conscious transformation of our thinking is required to avoid the chain of events that ultimately will lead to the disappearance of species.

• Video of Janine Randerson's work Cascade
• Janine Randerson's personal website
• Essay by Jacquie Clarke on Janine Randerson's work

Janine Randerson lives in New Zealand and is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She works at the intersection between art and science with a particular interest in weather and climate research. A recurring theme of her art is the exploration of various observation systems; from the microscope’s close-up of the world to the satellites’ distant images.

In her work, she mainly makes use of digital media, such as film, audio, video and computer programmed interactional design. In 2008, she created “Cascade” by collaborating with scientists from the department of Arctic Environment at DMU (National Environmental Research Institute) in Denmark.

Janine Randerson is a guest-editor of MIT’s “Leonardo Journal”, board member of the” Aotearoa Digital Arts” network and a member of “Synapse, the art-science collaboration network” in Australia.