Encargado por el Museo de Arte de Carolina del Norte con fondos de la Sociedad de Arte del Estado de Carolina del Norte (legado de Robert F. Phifer)
Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky is one of the first site-specific, outdoor installations commissioned for the Museum Park. A site-specific work is designed for a particular location. It is also interconnected with the location. This art installation was designed and built by British artist Chris Drury in 2003. The structure is located in a wooded area of the NCMA Park. It is made from stone, cement, earth, and trees and plants that are native to the southeastern United States. Drury is best known for creating nature-based sculptures and art installations that highlight the connections between humans and the environment.
This interactive sculpture operates like a giant camera obscura, or pinhole camera. The door to the structure must be closed in order to create complete darkness inside. A small opening in the roof projects an upside-down image of everything above it onto the floor and the walls inside it. Instead of looking up, the viewer looks down and sees the trees and sky on the ground inside the structure.
People who have never experienced being inside cloud chambers sometimes question the difference between looking up at clouds and seeing the image inside a chamber. In fact, these experiences are quite distinct . . . It is an altered image, slightly blurred, dim, like a scene from an old movie or a dream.
Chris Drury
Drury has designed and built 16 cloud chambers in different locations around the world. His only other cloud chamber in the United States is at Vanderbilt University in Brentwood, Tennessee. All of Drury’s cloud chambers are made from natural materials that are native to their surrounding environment. These interactive structures are designed to be peaceful spaces that bring the outside in.
After 17 years of use and exposure to the weather, the pine roof of Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky was showing signs of decay. NCMA conservation specialists consulted with Drury before restoring the roof in 2021. They reconstructed it using logs from the black locust tree. The black locust is a naturally rot-resistant tree that is native to this region.
tags: medio ambiente, vivencial, fotografía, reflexión, cambio, movimiento, luz, sensorial
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