A vision of clouds, july-november 2021

An Invitation from Arts letters and numbers

The film was first presented during the 17e venizian biennale of architecture in the digital pavillon curated by Arts letters 6 numbers

With : Alan Ruiz, Alessandra Mariani, Alexia Mathieu & Rob van Leijsen, Alexia Turlin, Anaïs Tondeur, Aurélien Catros, Benjamin Weber, Blaise Parmentier & Guillaume Pellay, Camille Fréchou, Corrina Studier, Dennis Pohl, Emanuele Coccia, Equipe Pranvera, Estelle Sauvage, Frank Westermeyer & Sylvie Boisseau, Guillaume Linard Osorio, Guillaume Robert, Hanna Kanto, Jana Kolb, Joanne Pouzenc & Sébastien Martinez Barrat, Julien Griffit, Julius-Maximilian Münch, Karin Schlageter & Marie Limoujoux, Konstantin Neumann, Kyrill Charbonnel, Leo Schweiger, Lisa Mazenauer & Simon Wüst, Luis Callejas & Victor Maréchal, Magali Wehrung, Mandana Bafghinia & Quasi Objects, Marie-Luce Nadal, Mathilde Chenin, Maud Soudain, Max Bondu, Michelle Montnacher, Myriam Treiber, Nicolas Prignot, Pauline Julier, Pavle Stamenovic, Pierre Boudon, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Simon Rousset, Sophie Houdart, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, Tilo Steireif, Tiphaine Abenia, Truant School team, Uri Wegman

With the support of Pro Helvetia,

Co-production : bermuda, ateliers for research & production

Partners : ALN, KIT University, (Karlsruhe), EPFL (Lausanne)

Swifts are fast flying birds who spend their lives in the air. In late summer evenings, towards dusk, they perform magnificent aerial dances in large flocks. The form of the dance is elusive. It is seemingly unorchestrated and improvised, crystallizing in moments of grand collective gestures or dissipating into fragmentary, individual trajectories. A three dimensional choreography that is impossible to predict and hard to describe yet breathtakingly beautiful.

In late summer of 2021 we gathered in bermuda, near geneva. A loosely connected flock of individuals who share a common interest in clouds in the condition of cloudiness. Together we spent 10 days discussing, drawing, watching, performing, building, cooking and eating many forms of clouds: water clouds, radioactive clouds, data clouds, property clouds, sonic clouds and others. In parallel, we asked fellow cloud gazers to catch a cloud and mail it to us. We received dozens of artefacts, each manifesting a specific observation of a cloud.

The results were grand and fragmentary, fragile and solid, ephemeral and concrete. They mostly dissipated into thin air yet some traces remained.

This video is an attempt to choreograph those traces in a swift-like formation, gathering glimpses of our summer dance.