clouded

a factory that produces clouds - how does it look like?

The prompt was to photograph every day for 7 weeks the same object (not necessarily from one point of view). By documenting the appearance of the same object and the changes that happen to it, we explore the ideas connected to time and the passage of it.

I chose the energy plant, which I have been passing by every day on my way to lecture halls. Most of the days were cloudy and the smoke merged into the clouds, creating a fascinating image. Almost immediately I thought of some science-fiction universe, where the only clouds left are the ones produced artificially.

Spatial Construction No. 12 by Aleksandr Rodchenko (c. 1920)

When thinking about the ways in which I could display the photos I collected over the course of 7 weeks, I took Soviet Constructivism as inspiration. The art movement payed specific attention to works of art being rather useful in practical sense, as well as had industrialization as one of its main themes.

I studied closely Spatial Construction No. 12 by Aleksandr Rodchenko (c. 1920) and took some of its features as inspiration for my work. Besides being movable, Rodchenko's sculpture also produces a shadow on the wall which differs based on a current position of the sculpture's parts.

electrical construction five-year plan in 4 years (c. 1931)

My solution was to create 3 boxes which would have photos of the factory on all 6 sides. Those were to be displayed together with two clouds made of cotton disks. All 5 objects were to be suspended from the ceiling on a thin string, so that from some distance it would look like the boxes and the clouds are floating. The light was coming at an angle creating movable shadows on the wall behind the art piece.

week 1

The work was a part of the exhibition Remixes at University of Rochester (Spring 2023). Every artwork participating in the exhibition had 2 stages, meaning that something had to be either removed or added or changed during the second week of the show. In my work clouded I decided to begin with only 2 boxes and 2 clouds, adding the third box during the second week.

week 2