rainy

The familiar sound of water dripping on a corrugated roof is embedded in our collective memory. In rainy (2025), Ross Manning reimagines this everyday sensory experience as a self-actuating audio and visual installation. Known for transforming domestic, found materials into chance-based orchestral performances, Manning’s Rainy is a kinetic assembly of recognisable, mundane household objects. Corrugated polycarbonate roof sheets—while not the familiar galvanised metal—still echo the iconic resonance of water on tin. Water trickles across and ricochets off their surfaces, falling into glass tanks below. Inside these tanks, household items—tins, coffee jars, and other vessels—serve as improvised percussion instruments, each droplet activating them as resonance chambers.

Water Cycles endlessly through a closed loop, the water transforms every drip into both a chance visual and sonic event, reinforcing the work’s hypnotic rhythm and echoing the perpetual movement of natural systems.This repetition underscores the installation’s meditative quality, where each droplet contributes to an evolving, self-sustaining composition. Undulating water reflects light, projecting rippling patterns across the floor and extending the work’s sensory field.

Rainy was created during Queensland’s 2025 ex-Cyclone Alfred. In place of anxiety, Manning offers an atmosphere of meditative rhythm—tuning into the percussive potential of water and memory in an ongoing chance-based audio-visual performance.