a cloud shaped cloud

This project explores the “cloud” as a metaphor for the internet. Research into this topic showed that the metaphor is actually contrary to the internet’s physical reality, but rather offers a mystical description of its characteristics. By freeing the metaphor from its physical counterpart, its mystical connotations expand by means of sound, video and narration, exploring the emotional relation between the technology and its human users in a new and unfamiliar way.

The metaphors of this origin myth are rooted in nature. Based on a literal reading of the “cloud” image, the narration starts out in a desert where no cloud has ever covered the sky. One day a single cloud arrives, stops and hovers over the sand. All descriptions of the cloud, its impact on its environment and the inhabitants are layered with metaphorical meaning and can just as well be read as comments on impact and characteristics of the internet.

The video expands into a spatial installation, in congruence with the vertical axis of the narration, alternating between upwards views into the sky and downward shots of the ground, the video is also installed in a twofold manner: In a specially prepared cube, the moving images are projected onto a screen-ceiling from above, from where they are then reflected in the giant mirror covering the floor. The visitor who enters the narrative becomes immersed in the mirror chamber of this metaphoric world.