In the previous post we looked at "The Spider/Web Pavilion 7", a project at the 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice in which artist Tomás Saraceno invited visitors to consider spider divination. In his installation in the Gaggiandre area of the Arsenale Saraceno tackles instead another type of divination.
"Aero(s)cene" is an open air installation comprising a sculpture composed of 36 clouds, plus glass displays containing further materials and background studies.
The cluster-like structures integrated in the sculpture are inspired by the Weaire-Phelan geometry of aggregating foam and soap bubbles. The piece oscillates suspended under the Gaggiandre, its aerial choreography influenced by the background with the petrochemical pole of Porto Marghera that can be seen towering over San Francesco della Vigna Church on the horizon.
The displays contain instead informative materials linked with Saraceno's "Aerocene" project, set on exploring sustainable ways of inhabiting the environment that bridge disciplines, combining, art, architecture, science, anthropology and philosophy (you can bet that at some point Saraceno will also start looking at fashion, just give him time...).
Among the materials there is the Aerocene Backpack, a portable flight starter kit with an aerosolar sculpture with sensors that can capture atmospheric data, an item ideal for solar-powered atmospheric exploration, and the "Acqua Alta: En Clave de Sol" score.
The latter was inspired by the sixteen sirens that warn people in Venice when the acqua alta is expected to reach the city within two to four hours.
The score on display here speculates about what the city will "sound" like in a hundred years' time with foundations eroded by overexploitation of resources. The alarm recordings become therefore the starting point for a composition that amplifies the silence of global warming, with speakers expanding the ebb and flow of the Arsenale's waters, hinting at ocean swellings.
In Saraceno's glossary Aerocene is a new post-fossil fuel epoch for human beings, an epoch in which we all realise that air belongs to everybody and that our habitat can't be compromised, but also an imaginary creative space free from boundaries and from polluting agents.
The piece suspended in the Gaggiandre space is the launch pad towards the new Aerocene epoch, but Saraceno created a while back other sculptures that, inflated with air and heated by the sun can rise into the air without the use of fossil fuels, helium, hydrogen, solar panels, batteries or burners.
Saraceno's Do-It-Together (DIT) aerosolar sculptures invite people lo look at the sky and read messages and predictions carried by clouds through weather patterns and imagined aerial creatures.
Observing the sky and the clouds is a way to think about pollution, global warming and climate change. Clouds are messengers and inspirations: they invite people to consider the beauty of floating in the fresh, clean air and the possibility human beings have of collaborating with the atmosphere.
Yet Saraceno's aerosolar sculptures could also be read as a critique: while black carbon, soot and radioactive clouds circulate around the world free from geopolitical borders, a large part of the human population does not have the same freedom of movement. Now, that's food for thought.
Comments