Talking with the Rusted Cloud

In the 21st century, the speed of transformation in Southeast Asia is perhaps beyond anything experienced by preceding generations. Because of this prompt change, the air pollution is so big in Asia that a giant brown cloud blocks the sunlight over our planet from India to China. The Asian brown cloud has reduced sunlight by more than 10% in huge swaths over planet Earth. Our Art&Science project focuses on the brown cloud phenomenon. We propose a translucent cave where a “Cloud Room” and a “Touching The Cloud Screen” are included. In the cloud room we install a 20cm diameter sky-disc made out of NASA’s nanomaterial silica aerogel. A white LED light projector will orbit around the rotating sky-disc, generating thus a giant golden-hue shadow. On the opposite side of our projected shadows there is a second rear projection where spectators can see someone’s finger trying to touch the brown cloud… Searching where this projection is coming from, (s)he could enter our cave and discover how we can communicate with a cloud. After penetrating the double entrance, it is reveled that a LED/laser orbiting projector and the sky disc are causing the dramatic shadows (seen before when passing outside the installation). In the same cloud room full of laserflowers, other visitors are touching and/or talking with the brown cloud… A candid camera is capturing every touching on the cloud, projecting live this image on the entrance screen and in the same time activating an overseas Skype call where the Biennale spectator begins a dialogue with the brown cloud.
An S.O.S (Save Our Sky) music -based on the international Morse code distress signal- accomplishes our statement on our wounded sky.

Ioannis Michaloudis
Curtin University