Clouds
Although there have been earlier cases of using ‘fog’ in the field of Arts and Architecture (cf. the theoretical interest in the immaterialisation of architecture since the 1970s), it was probably the design of the Blur Building of 2002 by the New York studio of Diller & Scofidio that for the first time realised the idea of immateriality in architecture.
When being in a cloud one only sees a blur, but from the outside one realises that the cloud has a definite form, due to the respective atmospheric conditions.
Interested in finding out, how immateriality works in the field of culture, the artist Darya von Berner created a cloud for the first time in front of the Puerta de Alcalá (Madrid) in autumn 2007. Not fog or an immaterial building but a cloud that consisted of water particles in suspension.
Clouds can be recognised by their formal appearance, which is however subject to constant change. With our limited means we observe the clouds, perhaps intending to find out certain principles, which determine their behaviour, in order to finally be able to predict their appearance and disappearance. We can do so with the help of thermodynamic laws and explain cloud motions by means of the Navier-Stokes equations, using a certain simplification, as these equations would otherwise be unsolvable in their complexity – there exists no general solution for this set of equations at this point.
We define something as immaterial because we are not able to define it. Darya von Berner suggests a certain continuity between the actual concepts of ‘blur’, fog, and immateriality on the one hand and the classical idea of form on the other.
La nube de la Puerta de Alcalá
International Cloud Flag - Den Haag
