Archive feature, first published 2013-10-05.
By balancing temperature, humidity and lighting, Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde created a cloud in the middle of a room. He created luminous masses of vapor that slowly float through rooms and hallways of buildings, transforming them into surreal, dreamlike landscapes. Each cloud lasts only moments, and the photograph preserves one appearance of it.
People's fascination with Berndnaut's clouds have only increased since TIME magazine listed them as one of the “Top 10 inventions of 2012″. (Strictly, TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2012 had 25 entries, with “Indoor Clouds” first; it was not a top 10.)
A photograph preserves a temporary event
Smilde's indoor cloud work sits between an event in a room and the photograph through which many viewers encounter it. The room matters: its scale, surfaces and light help give the cloud a setting. Consider what the image would lose if the cloud were cropped away from the architecture. The photograph preserves one appearance of something temporary, rather than documenting an ordinary permanent feature of the building. That relationship between presence and disappearance is a useful way into the work without adding unsupported claims about inventions or awards.
A closer look
Consider what a photograph preserves when the subject itself does not last. The room provides continuity while the cloud changes, making time as important to the artwork as its shape.
Further reading: Berndnaut Smilde: artist website
Related reading: Vera Shimunia's Embroidered Landscapes With Raised Clouds.
The room provides a measure for the cloud
Doorways, walls and familiar architectural proportions give the temporary form a scale. Without that setting, the image would offer less of the surprise that an indoor cloud creates. The photograph therefore records a relationship between the fleeting event and the room, not just an isolated shape suspended against a neutral background.
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