Aerosolar Arentsz and Rummelsberg flight

Within the Aerocene movement, different Possible Future(s) are envisioned and discussed: shared, pollution-free, solidary, socially and environmentally sustainable futures. But in this case we highlight a vision of an Aero Solar past brought forward by Aerocene Community member Irina Bogdan @irinambogdan

Inspired by the poetic aerosolar flights free from carbon emissions that took place on top of the frozen Rummelsburg lake in Berlin in February 2021, she went on to create a collage mixing Aerocene Sculptures and Arent Arentsz oil painting “Skaters on the Amstel”, made in Belgium in 1620.

On the occasion of the Rummelsberg flights last year an Aerocene Community member Lorenzo Malloni @malloni.lorenzo wrote: “As soon as the black Aerosolar sculptures get inflated on the ice with only air, the power of the sun lifts them off instantaneously – amplified by the albedo reflection effect on the white, frosty lake. Immediately, their movements in the thin air generate a focal point attracting the public and participants onto the wide white stage”.

But rather than keep us in the past, this vision may propel us into devising new Possible Future(s):
How to cool down the planet and foster a new sensitivity towards it?
How to explore without exploitation?
How to subvert the fossil fuels regime with the one of the Sun?

Under My Gaze

We are happy to invite the worldwide Aerocene Community, but especially those in Berlin, to the Under My Gaze aerosolar dance performance, by Renae Shadler and her collaborators together with Aerocene.

“The Sun gazes upon the Earth, creating and destroying life, the engine on which our ecosystems depend. Under my gaze is a ritual for our times, where bodies and voices pulse with the gravitational pull and combustive power of this solar giant, tracing the Sun’s movements through limb and skin, through reflection and darkness. Bodies and voices pulse with the gravitational pull and combustive power of this solar giant, tracing the Sun’s movements through limb and skin, through reflection and darkness.

Under my Gaze is a quartet performed by three people and the Aerocene sculpture that gives a body to the unseen forces that surround us: connecting Earth-bound dancers to aerial and cosmic worlds in a transforming landscape of shadowy creatures and molten forms.

The dancers explore ways to see the Sun without eyes, learning from other creatures – phototropic plants, hydra that sense light with their tentacles. The audience bears witness to this fierce and at times delicate interplay of force and form, tuning in via headphones to the rhythmic stomps and ethereal flight.

Under my Gaze proposes a new poetics of movement fuelled not by fossilised energy, but by the gaze of the Sun itself; moving with – rather than extracting from – the often invisible forces that stir and surround us.”

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As we learn to attune to the weather to adapt to new climates, the performance is weather dependent.

Under my Gaze
28-31. July 2022 / 11.30-12.45hr
St. Elisabeth Kirche, Invalidenstraße 4A, 10115 Berlin

The perfomance is open to everyone!
Purchasing a ticket grants you the experience of an audio soundtrack via wireless headphones.

More information: http://renaeshadler.com/undermygaze/

TEAM
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Renae Shadler | Performance: Mickey Mahar, Dorota Michalak | Composition: Samuel Hertz | Set design: Camille Lacadee | Costume design: Geraldine Arnold | Dramaturgy: Ally Bisshop, Maikon K | Production, Distribution: Dörte Wolter | Production assistant: Undine Sommers | Photos: Piotr Pietrus | Video: Camille Lacadee | Inspired by Susurrus group, 2017-2020: Samuel Hertz, Maria Nurmela, Kalle Ropponen, Renae Shadler

Presented by Renae Shadler & Collaborators in collaboration with Aerocene Foundation. Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.

Salar de Uyuni – Bolivia expedition

EXPEDITION LOGBOOK
Sala de Uyuni, Bolivia
20.1338° S, 67.4891° W
3,656 metres above sea level

In 2017 Tomas Saraceno and a small group of photographers, documentalists, artists and geographers visited the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, one of the world’s largest salt flats.

They were looking for images in which the horizon disappears as a result of the reflection of the sky on the water-covered surface of the salt flat, investigating the perception of floating in the clouds during the day or in the constellations of stars at night.

This Aerocenic gathering was a seed for many initiatives, connections, and cosmogonies that would later come together: the development of an international Aerocene community and the World Record making of Pacha flights in Salinas Grandes, piloted by Leticia Marques carrying the message of the native communities for climate justice.

But the reality we encounter in the mesmerising landscapes of Latin America’s salt flats is that the disastrous effects of the mining industry on earth inherently extend both upwards and downwards.

Aerocene imagines a future era in which we learn together to float and live in the air, but also in which we recognize that we cannot do so without reaching an ethical alignment to the atmosphere and our planet Earth.

Today we share this beautiful trip with the Aerocene community, through a selection of texts from the trip’s open logbook. We invite you to read the excerpts:

Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016

“The point is that what was expected was found wanting: the rains and liquid volumes were long overdue. So we kneeled and burnt incense, we encircled shrines and listened to the bemoaned wailings of agrarian villages crying to their lord – or lords – to turn it on, to bring the rain – it was long. long overdue.”

Jol Thoms

 

“Por la noche en el salar comenzó a soplar un viento infernal. Con la guitarra toqué algunas canciones para entrar en calor pero el frío y el viento hizo que me metiera en la pileta de lona con Tomás que estaba todo tapado con varias mantas en su bolsa de dormir. Una vez dentro de la pileta en mi bolsa de dormir y tapado con las mantas intenté nuevamente tocar la guitarra. Al sacar el mástil hacia arriba, el viento hizo vibrar las cuerdas produciendo unos sonidos y unas armonías ya que modificando la inclinación de la guitarra o girándola apenas iba variando una melodía con notas más graves o más agudas. El instrumento de cuerdas se transformó temporalmente en uno de viento. Más tarde nos dormimos con un cielo totalmente cubierto de estrellas.”

Maxi Laina

 

“Next morning we find the lake covered with Bubbles. No idea where they come from. Air inclusions rising from the salt ground? Algae blooms?…
The feeling of hovering in space is back a last time. When approaching the tripod of my camera I actually lose my balance. Jan is reporting the same feeling.”

Bernd Pröschold

 

“Arrivati in ostello, eravamo presi tutti da un’euforia strana, finalmente pioveva ed era una cosa importante non solo per il nostro progetto, ma anche per tutti gli abitanti di Coqueza che aspettavano questo giorno da varie settimane. La serata si è trasformata in una festa cantando, suonando la chitarra e giocando a carte!
La mattina dopo ci siamo svegliati all’alba, eravamo in mezzo a uno specchio d’acqua. Il cielo e le nuvole si riflettevano nel suolo, tutto era doppio e il sole brillava forte come mai ho visto prima.
Questo è stato uno dei giorni più speciali del mio viaggio e sicuramente un ricordo straordinario che porterò sempre con me.”

Martina Pellachi

 

“No tenemos agua, pero, tenemos sandía”
Sasha Engelmann

 

“It started to rain a few days before the end of the expedition, but the salt lake was so dry that the water just fully got absorbed.
Suddenly at night it started to rain seriously: you could hear it very loud on the zinc roof.
I went to sleep with this exciting feeling I had when I was a child and the first snow was falling during the evenings, just before bedtime.”
Daniel Schulz

Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
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Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, © 2016
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Read more about the fight for Climate Justice and against unsustainable Lithium Extraction

Watch Tomas Saraceno with Aerocene TED Talk on

Aerocene Arcosanti with Joseph Becker and TSOA

On March 4th, 5th, and 6th, 2022, a group of students from The School of Architecture at Arcosanti flew an Aerocene Sculpture, as part of Professor Joseph Becker’s workshop “RAD/PED,” a three-day exploration of radical pedagogies.

Following the guides included in the Aerocene Backpack atmospheric exploration kit, the team launched an Aerocene sculpture from the spectacular roof of Arcosanti in Arizona, which was able to get aerosolar lift in very cold air. Embracing the do-it-together ethos of the Aerocene, the students also built and launched their own Museo Aero Solar Tetro sculpture out of a thin recycled-plastic drop cloth and plastic bags.

Arcosanti is an experimental town in the high desert of Arizona founded by Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri. Envisioned as an experiment in living frugally and with a limited environmental footprint, Arcosanti is an attempt at a prototype arcology, integrating the design of architecture with respect to ecology.

In dialog with the Aerocene Community, Professor Joseph Becker, who is the Associate Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, expressed: “Cultural revolutions and moments of societal upheaval have contributed to ways of looking beyond the traditional and hierarchical formats of teaching, learning, and making. This workshop examined the circumstances and explores the techniques of a history of radical pedagogy in art and architecture.”

La Isla de La Paternal

On Sunday Septermber 27th, members of the Buenos Aires Aerocene Community gathered for an aero solar flight at “La Isla de La Paternal”. “La Isla”, or the island, is one of the Buenos Aires city most important green spaces: a green lung surrounded by the neighborhoods of La Paternal, Villa Ortúzar and Angronomía, now at risk of an excluding real estate development.

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Climate Strike Berlin 2021

The Aerocene Berlin community participated on the September 24th Climate Strike, carrying a fully inflated aerosolar sculpture that had been modified with an inscrption: Uproot the system.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside Germany’s parliament on Friday calling on authorities to take stronger action against climate change.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg addressed the Berlin crowd from a stage, urging voters to keep politicians under constant pressure over climate change.

“We can still turn this around,” she said. “We demand change, and we are the change.”

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Wetlands Protest at Congreso de la Nación

On Wednesday 18 August 2021, the Aerocene community of Buenos Aires and the islands of the Paraná River Delta participated in the demonstration in front of Congress in favour of the Wetlands Law. The protest was organised by different civil society groups, self-organised movements and political parties, coordinated by the Multisectorial Humedales.

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Aerocene @ Abitare Conessioni Festival

In August 2021, the Aerocene Community was invited to participate of the Abitare Conessioni Festival, in the Barbagia region in Sardinia. Represented by Lorenzo Malloni, during several days Aerocene sculptures flew to the backdrop of of Orani, it’s people and beautiful town.

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Treptower Park Berlin

As the boreal summer slowly unfolds in the northern hemisphere, a group of Aerocene community members from Berlin set out to inaugurate the aerosolar floating season. United at Treptower Park, alongside the river Spree, they inflate the Aerocene sculpture contained in the Backpack by running around, filling it up with the same air we all breathe. As the sun heats, slowly, the air inside becomes warmer and thus lighter than the air outside.

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