Anthropogenic cloud

Predicting future events has always been one of the greatest ambitions of the human being. An example of this, can be found in the forecasts of atmospheric events. In the 1950s, the first automated weather forecast was created: a generic flight simulator was built for the Air Force. The aim of that was to help the pilots through a sort of weather forecast system that recreated the potential climatic conditions.

The man has managed to affect the climate because of pollution, artificial conditions and imitation of every phenomenon present in nature. Anthropogenic Cloud comes from data generated by human activities. It is an artificial cloud caused by the contrails created by vehicles that form flight paths. Clouds are both poetic but also harmful as long-term studies on them have shown. The skies are increasingly cloudy due to contrails.

Every day, thousands of planes connect one city to another like metallic rivers along international trajectories. Real-time viewing sites of air routes, captured by a network of amateur trackers, show us the hight numbers of airplanes that incessantly fly around the world. The Anthropogenic Cloud installation monitors and recreates the artificial cloud on the ground whenever a flying device is within its range.

Although algorithms are a matter of opaque complexity and often of dubious morality, in this case it contributes to spread the problem and not to solve it. The work wants to resize a phenomenon far from our perception. The cloud is generated by a system of networks that provide us with specific information that unfortunately also disorient us.

In collaboration with Giuliano Lupi and Carmine De Rosa