FREE FROM BORDERS, FREE FROM FOSSIL FUELS

Aerocene is in, on, about, and with the air.

An interdisciplinary artistic endeavor that seeks to devise new modes of sensitivity, reactivating a common imaginary towards achieving an ethical collaboration with the atmosphere and the environment. By collaboratively developing, testing and launching Aerosolar sculptures, Aerocene seeks to open up the imagination, un-tethering a new era of planetary attunement, restoring the thermodynamic balance of the Earth.

The launch pad towards this new epoch is an aerosolar balloon, a Do-It-Together (DIT) entrance to the aerial, whose engine is only the air and the heat of the Sun, floating as a result of temperature differentials between the two air masses, anywhere from 2 degrees up, without using any fossil fuels, helium, hydrogen, solar panels or batteries. Since its beginning, various sculptures and tools have been invented and world records broken in a move towards this collective vision developed by the Aerocene global community of artists, geographers, philosophers, thinkers, scientists, explorers, balloonists, and technologists and other enthusiasts.

In a world of  tumultuous geopolitical relations, Aerocene communicates a message of simplicity, reminding us that the air belongs to everyone and should not depend on any type of sovereignty. It imagines a new infrastructure, which challenges and redefines an international right to mobility, reversing the extractive approach humans have developed toward the planet and re-examining freedom of movement between countries. This could be achieved by encouraging a bottom-up, participatory approach to policy making about the air, and through the activity of international community-building carried out by the Aerocene Foundation.

AEROCENE MANIFESTO.

AERONAUTS UNITE!

While fossil fuel enterprises to colonize other planets are put in place, this very same interface between us and the Sun and the atmosphere, the air continues to be compromised: carbon emissions fill the air, invisible radio waves develop in a hegemonic algorithm of finance, particulate matter floats inside our lungs.

How would breathing feel in a post fossil fuel economy, and what is our response-ability?

How do we challenge geopolitical borders in an age of climate inequality?

FLOAT PREDICTOR

TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD
using no other resources than the sun >>

THE AEROCENE EXPLORER

a backpack that can teach you how to fly.

The Aerocene Explorer is your personal tool for solar-powered atmospheric exploration: a tethered-flight starter kit offering a new way to sense the environment. Enclosed in a portable backpack is everything you need to float an Explorer sculpture and start exploring the skies.

Designed to engage participants in thinking-through- making activity, stimulate imagination and creativity, and impart information about solar balloon flight, thermodynamic physics, meteorological science, and art practices in a multidisciplinary way, the Explorer allows participants to draw signatures in, of and with the air, declaring independence from fossil fuels.

Like all Aerocene sculptures, the Explorer lifts off ground only using the heat from the sun, and floats without burning fossil fuels, helium, and other rare gases. 

WHAT CAN I DO WITH THE EXPLORER?

The Aerocene Explorer is currently being tested and developed by a passionate global community of artists, geographers, philosophers, thinkers, speculative scientists, explorers, balloonists, and technologists, and other enthusiasts.

Have you floated with the Explorer? Share your experience with us! Write to info@aerocene.org. 

NEWS

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FLIGHTS & EXPERIMENTS

See how people launch, hack and experiment with Aerocene sculptures! 

Marble breeze x Aerocene Workshop

Together with Aerocene, thr34d5 has invited 15 participants to a free experimental workshop from Nov. 19th to 25th 2018, in the context of Tomás Saraceno‘s Carte Blanche exhibition in Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

From open data de-encryption to measurement instrument making, the Marble Breeze reveals itself at its many scales and shapes.

NEW RECORD! FIRST AEROCENE HUMAN FLIGHT IN FRANCE

On Saturday 27.10.2018, Aerocene community established a new worldwide record, 6 passengers were buoyant with the air for approx 80 min without using ANY propane, discerning itself from all other certified solar crafts in existence.  Together, Aerocene community achieved the acknowledgement for the first fully solar-powered human flight in history, and in France, 235 years after the Montgolfier brothers fossil fueled flight.

Free Flight at Schönfelde

Last Saturday, 9th of June 2018, two Aerocene sculptures were released in a free flight and later kindly tracked, found and retrieved by Polish radio-amateurs from Radiosondy Polska. At 9 am, over 40 Aerocene community members joined together to celebrate the launch of the book ‘Aerocene’.

INFLAMABLE HAS A VOICE

On Sunday 8th of July 2018, Aerocene Foundation in collaboration with Sembrando Juntos Community Center, ACIJ and Blog Proyecto Riachuelo held a day of thought and reflection with Aerocene aerosolar balloon flights at Villa Inflamable. In addition to the residents of Inflamable, we were joined by a documentary team from Universidad 3 de Febrero and the community TV channel that covers the shanty towns of Buenos Aires, Urbana Te Ve.

Esperance & Perth Explorer Flights

A duo of first ever Australian Aerocene Explorer flights took place in the last week of 2017 and the first week of 2018. The flight in Esperance was a true testament to the ability of the wind, with a strong onshore south-westerly typical to the area, the flight was equal parts battle and dance with the wind in an attempt to gain some lift from the sun and record some aerial footage of the beautiful coastal landscape.

Aerocene Explorer flies over the CCCB

Only one day before the closing of ‘After the End of the World’, an exhibition about the Earth of 2017 (irreversibly transformed into the Anthropocene planet after two centuries of human impact on natural systems) and how we will reach the world of the latter half of the 21st century.

CITIZEN SCIENCE

Aerocene Explorer Performance and Interactive Display @ MIT, Killian Court and Memorial Lobby, April 20th and 21st

The sky was painted a crystal blue, and from all corners of MIT, people strolled out in shorts and sunglasses. Meanwhile, a gigantic black balloon was floating on Killian Lawn. Animated by what could only be described as an otherworldly force, the object writhed midair.

SUSURRUS MEETS AEROCENE IN DRESDEN

Dresden, German: March 5th 2018

Performers Renae Shadler and Maria Nurmela launched an Explorer Sculpture  on the courtyard of Hellerau Festival Theatre to get inspired for their research.The core of the ‘Susurrus’ project  is to encourage environmental awareness through  a sensual journey that encourages audiences to sense their embeddedness within the biosphere. 

Aerocene San Luis - Expedition Logbook

November 2nd 2017 - January 8th 2018

We share a sneak peak of our adventures in the province of Argentina, where we tried some air-water-air experiments with Aerosolar Sculptures and learnt from the atmosphere by attempting to launch the first ever solar free-flight balloon in Argentina.

Want to add your launch or innovation to this page? Let us know! Write to us at info@aerocene.org. 

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DIVE INTO THE AEROCENE

READ FURTHER INTO THE INSIGHTS OF THE CONTRIBUTORS OF The Aerocene Newspaper
 

'Air Crafted Architecture' — Pierre Chabard
'Saraceno's Model of Models: The Magnificence of Aerocene' — Kiel Moe
'High Altitude, Low Opening (H.A.L.O.)' — Sanford Kwinter
'Up' — Bronislaw Szerszynski
'The fixed and flowing air' — Oliver Morton
'On the Political Influence of the Sun' — Boris Groys
'Piloting the Aerocene' — Derek McCormack
'I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone*' — Olivier Michelon
'Tianhe 天河区: Parables of the Celestial River — Jol Thomson and Sasha Engelmann
'Aerocene: Becoming Aerosolar' — A collaboration between Tomás Saraceno (Visiting Artist MIT), Leila Kinney (MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology), Lodovica Illari and Bill McKenna (MIT Department of Earth, Air and Planetary Sciences)
'Alter-engineered Worlds' — Nicholas Shapiro