Aerocene
Nominee(s)
Tomas Saraceno & the Aerocene Foundation
Selected Links
Website and social media: aerocene.com facebook.com/aerocene twitter.com/aerocene #Aerocene #liftedbythesun Videos: https://vimeo.com/155525722/cd7a8e00ef Articles (selection): http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n12/full/nphys3588.html https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tomas-saraceno-s-latest-project-pleads-for-progress-on-climate-change-at-paris-s-cop21-conference https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tomas-saraceno-aerocene-era-759356 http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/news/aerocene-air-sculptures-at-cop21/ https://creators.vice.com/en_au/article/help-hack-toms-saracenos-aerocene-explorer
Category
InnovatingAbout This Project
Aerocene is an exemplar because it explores a number of innovative technical approaches to lighter than air travel that may result in achieving the longest, emission-free journey around the world. It engages diverse publics and introduces them to new technologies. The project has bridged organizations and experts from many fields, ranging from architecture to geography to technology, as well as bridging countries, including France, Argentina, Germany, and the United States. This project will influence transportation and telecommunication technologies. Aerocene allows for new means of communal creation and innovation for the new age.
From the Nominee:
Aerocene is an open-source, multi-disciplinary project that foregrounds the artistic and scientific exploration of environmental issues. In the wake of the Anthropocene, the project promotes common links between social, mental, and environmental ecologies. Aerocene, developed by Aerocene Foundation, manifests as a series of air-fuelled sculptures that will achieve the longest, emission-free journey around the world: becoming buoyant only by the heat of the Sun and infrared radiation from the surface of Earth. The sculpture floats without burning fossil fuels, without using solar panels and batteries; and without helium, hydrogen and other rare gases. Inflated only by air, lifted only by the sun, carried only by the wind, towards a clean and sustainable future.
Aerocene is comprised of a dedicated and diverse global community of artists, geographers, philosophers, thinkers, speculative scientists, explorers, balloonists, technologists, and dreamers. The Aerocene project’s primary collaborators and supporters are the Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), CNES (French National Space Agency), CCK Argentina, Public Lab, The Goethe Institute, Radioamateur, Freifunk, and IAK architecture-related Art Institute at Technische Universität Braunschweig, TBA21, among others. Anyone is invited to share, collaborate, and perform actions in the communal creation and development of the new Aerocene age.