Tomas Saraceno is an Argentinian contemporary artist whose work focuses on science and social sciences and addresses ethical and environmental issues. His long-term projects are Cloud City, which ties into Aerocene to showcase sustainable living and movement in the air using renewable energy and resources. He is also fascinated by spiders and spiderwebs, which inspired his work on Arachnopilia. The concepts of Aerocene, Cloud City, and Arachnophilia are featured in his sculptures and installations that provoke viewers, including myself, to consider the complexities of space, time, relationships, environments, etc.
The concept of living and moving in space is one that is hard to comprehend, but Tomas Saraceno is able to give a visual representation of that possibility in a beautiful way. I found his work on Cloud Cities, which includes Cloud City located in Berlin, IN ORBIT, On the Roof, and Stillness in Motion to be fascinating because it completely changes the viewer’s perception of a space in different ways. Some were interactive in order to experience different forms of living and ways of moving, and many inhabited a space for viewers to experience the interactions and relationships between communities in an environment. In each of his works on Cloud Cities, the influence of planetary bodies, physics, space-time continuum, neural network, gravity and other concepts that are hard for me to visualize are represented through the materials, structures, and shapes, which is what makes his projects so compelling.
His Aerocene projects are models and proposals for sustainable living in the air due to the current climate crisis and condition of our environment. Solar Bell, Aerocene, and Event Horizons are innovative projects that feature floating models based on his research with MIT and NASA programs to explore traveling and living in space. The Solar Bell and Event Horizons feature floating orbs that are meant to use sustainable energy, and are used in outdoor and indoor environments to enhance the space. Aerocene is a geometric pyramid that is sculpturally intriguing but also functional.
Lastly, his work on spider webs and Arachnophilia explores structures that convey light and airiness, while being structurally sound. Similar to spider webs, his installations weave and connect allowing viewers to walk through the exhibit and examine the complexities of the networks he creates. Saraceno said he found a connection between human relationships and the structure of spiderwebs through his research that also inspired his work on Cloud Cities.
Overall, what I found compelling about Tomas Saraceno’s sculptures and installations is that his work is like peeking into a dystopian future that lays out a seemingly impossible but amazing world, yet it’s one that will be necessary if our earth continues to deteriorate.