[VIDEO] Exploring Cloud Cities and Solar Balloon Travel with Tomás Saraceno
World-renowned artist Tomás Saraceno sits down with The Creators Project to talk about the architectures of flying buildings, spider webs and solar balloons.
Tomás Saraceno’s new studio is under construction, and slowly taking over two imposing three-story buildings in the area of Köpenick, a red-bricked and forested district of Berlin that spills into the nearby Spree and Dahme rivers and the Mügglesee lake. Inside, the studio is huge and rough, and filled with elaborate models of flying pyramidal plazas, patchwork solar balloons, and a specialized tropical environment for exotic spiders. “In old buildings, there’s always a spiderweb in a corner,” says Saraceno as he climbs the stairs.
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Tomás Saraceno, Cloud-Specific, 2011. Mixed media. Different dimensions. Installation views at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis 2011. Courtesy: Tomás Saraceno; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Andersen's Contemporary, Copenhagen; and pinksummer contemporary art, Genoa.Saraceno, a trained architect, is endlessly fascinated by cities and structures -- particularly ones that exist above ground and float in the air. And over the years, he’s translated the networks and geometries of social, political and natural environments into new habitable spaces and poetic experiences, such as the walkable Cloud City at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the intricate Galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider’s web showcased at the 2009 Venice Art Biennale. In our new documentary, above, we step into the creator’s fantastical “lighter-than-air” world of spider web sculptures and research into futuristic airborne cities.
Tomas Saraceno, Flying Garden /Air-Port-City, 2005. Installation view: Villa Manin, Center for Contemporary Art, Codroipo, Italy. Photo: Sillani. Elliptical air pillows, elastic rope, helium, air, clouds. Different dimensions. Courtesy the artist and pinksummer contemporary art, Genoa.Architecture, Saraceno believes, is more than the art and science of creating buildings, but a way to consider the construction, articulation or composition of anything, from music to spiderwebs and even computer systems. At the same time, scientific research and knowledge are especially important to his creative process. Often, he collaborates with scientists to ground his work in biology, physics, engineering, chemistry, aeronautics and materials science.
Tomas Saraceno, Cosmic Jive: the Spider Session at Museo di Villa Croce, Genoa - Italy, 2014. Curators: Luca Cerizza and Ilaria Bonacossa. Courtesy: Tomás Saraceno; Pinksummer contemporary art, Genoa; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Andersen's Contemporary, Copenhagen, Esther Schipper Gallery, Berlin.During his work with spiderwebs, Saraceno was curious about how all the threads of a web were interconnected: pluck one, and another would vibrate. He explored the same concept in On Space Time Foam, a walkable environment made of three layers of transparent film filled with air that filled the post-industrial Hangar Bicocca in Milan. This project was the result of Saraceno’s studies on how humans perceive gravity, but also a brilliant reflection on the M-theory on parallel universes, and the concept of social distance. As participants moved to different areas in the space, the plastic shape would shift and sink while its opposite end would bulge. “It plays a lot with the concept of proxemia, the distance that you communicate to the others, and how much you can get close,” he says. “If you get too close you get trapped in a kind of social black hole, which is very difficult to escape. You have to become very, very aware.”In addition to a passion for futuristic research and social science, Saraceno is intrigued with the rediscovery of vintage technology, specifically lighter-than-air travel. He is most intrigued by the solar balloon: “Only eight exist in the world!” He recently set out to build one, and succeeded. Saraceno believes the solar balloon can be an alternative mode of transportation, and even possibly the foundation for new habitats in the sky. The studio is now looking for partners to promote this revived technology. “If you build a city of flying buildings, it has to be very light. Maybe with the wind they could fly themselves. A kite city,” he muses, with a faraway look in his eye.
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