Tomás Saraceno: Aerocene

Tomás Saraceno’s artistic project Aerocene is a series of air-fuelled sculptures that will float in the longest, most sustainable journey around the world without engines, becoming buoyant only by the heat of the Sun and infrared radiation from the surface of Earth. The project floats in the air without burning of fossil fuels, using solar panels, batteries; or helium, hydrogen and other rare gases from the ground re-sensing the circulation of energy and resources.

The material realization is surpassed by the message it bears: Its aesthetic form follows a both utopian and real idea of open source force of movement. Inflated by the air, lifted by the sun, carried by the wind, the project questions and seeks answers to our current and troublesome dependency on fossil and hydrocarbon fuels and pollution – the topics that places Aerocene at the core of United Nations Climate Change Conference COP21 topical framework.

In a world divided by geopolitics, Aerocene calls for participation and do-it-together actions. Crossing the frontiers between art, science and education, it becomes a visionary and open platform of shared knowledge. Thus it seeks for the deep understanding of our planet and all its physical, natural and social entanglements in order to project new ways of how we can move, dwell and be-together here on Earth.

For COP21 Paris, the artist will present the first Aerocene prototype at Grand Palais that will be able to circumnavigate the earth many times. At Palais de Tokyo, a symposium and a demonstrative workshop will be organized, and a series of actions and collective performances, based on open-source collaborative principles, will take place. Confirmed participants of three panels event include Leila W. Kinney (MIT CAST), Marion Ackermann (Kunstsammlung NRW, K21 Düsseldorf), Oliver Morton (The Economist), Bronislaw Szerszynski (Lancaster University) and others.

4-10 December 2015
Aerocene – Around the world to change the world
An open project by Tomás Saraceno
Grand Palais, Paris

5-6 December 2015, h. 14-18
Workshop: Museo Aerosolar with Tomás Saraceno
6 December, h. 15
Symposium
Palais de Tokyo, Paris