Clouds as temporary sculptures

March 12, 2012 10:06 AM

Berndnaut is fascinated by anything in between. Corridors and clouds, not yet there and not yet solid. What if a sculpture were to be nothing but thin air, smoke or scent?
posted by filthy light thief (20 comments total)

See, also, Vik Muniz.
posted by The Bellman at 10:15 AM on March 12, 2012

I don't understand the technique and presentation... Is he making a cloud you can visit, or just so he can photograph?
posted by joelf at 10:22 AM on March 12, 2012

Here's a video. Money shot is at 1:07. The clouds exist for a short bit and then dissipate.
posted by griphus at 10:31 AM on March 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I guess if you want to know if he's somehow made an actual indoor cloud, a simulated cloud that morphs and changes like a cloud, or a giant cotton ball on fishing line you'll have to visit it because you can't learn shit from his intentionally vapid artist's statements.
posted by clarknova at 10:31 AM on March 12, 2012

You can watch the development of a cloud (Cumulus tbp) here. It's in Dutch but there is not much talking and the ooohing and aaahing doesn't need any translation. Although I'm neither oooh nor aaah.
posted by KMB at 10:33 AM on March 12, 2012

Oh, okay, a video.
posted by clarknova at 10:36 AM on March 12, 2012

I really like that cloud. He could get a lot of jobs doing projects for high end hotels.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:47 AM on March 12, 2012

Nimbus was a series of 9 photos, each of a different cloud formation, but taken in such a way that it could appear that you had walked into a room and found a cloud, then walked around the cloud in the room.

Nimbus II was an ephemeral "sculpture," where a cloud existed in a room for a moment, as seen in the embedded video in the page linked to by grphius and KMB.

Berndnaut also made Cumulus, a sculpture made with aerogel, but it's less of a cloud, and more of an actual (hazy, translucent) sculpture.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:10 AM on March 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Very cool. See also: Andy Goldsworthy's throws.
posted by gwint at 11:14 AM on March 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

I have an unbridled love for clouds [and the moon, and things in the sky in general]. But clouds, oh man. I can't wait until the day that I can travel the country and stare at the sky.
If the cloud wasn't so transitory, and I could actually experience what Berndnaut wanted us to experience [i.e. being in a room with a cloud just sitting there] then I would probably never leave, and die of starvation because I'd be too enamored to eat.
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:20 AM on March 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Love the photo of a house in one location in the US with the same name being used to produce the same effect on Google maps when the google maps photo car comes by.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:21 AM on March 12, 2012

I can't believe nobody's mentioned "The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D," by J.G. Ballard (quote).
posted by languagehat at 11:26 AM on March 12, 2012

What if a sculpture were to be nothing but thin air, smoke or scent?

You mean like this?
posted by Relay at 11:39 AM on March 12, 2012

See also: Lisa Robertson's Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture.
posted by oulipian at 12:10 PM on March 12, 2012

From the google translation he sprays the room with water vapor then shoots in a puff of smoke. The vapor condenses into what is essentially a real cloud. Cool.

Initially it reminded me of the blur building but I see it is something really much different.
posted by nutate at 12:28 PM on March 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

What were skies like when you were young? They went on for ever and they when I we lived in Arizona and the skies always had little fluffy clouds and err.. they were long and clear and there were lots of stars, at night. And errr when it rain it would all turn, it, they were beautiful, the most beautiful skies as a matter of fact, errr the sunsets were the sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire and the clouds would catch the colours everywhere, thats, its neat because I used to look at them all the time when i was little. You don't see that.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:23 PM on March 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

You might still see them in the desert.

Best YT comment from that video/song: 50 years old , never went to college or took drugs. This is the first time I've heard this, cool stuff. What did I miss out on? If re-incarnation is real I'm going to college next time.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:19 PM on March 12, 2012

Er, the comment was on the shorter version of that track, if you were wondering.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:20 PM on March 12, 2012

gwint: See also: Andy Goldsworthy's throws.

Good call. Those then reminded me of Shinichi Maruyama's photos of liquid in motion (more).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:23 AM on March 13, 2012

Take 2: (more)
posted by filthy light thief at 11:24 AM on March 13, 2012