Kat Austen, CultureLab editor
On Space Time Foam (Image: courtesy of Fondazione HangarBicocca; photography by Alessandro Coco)
See more in our gallery: "The universal art of networking"
"I HAVE always been fascinated by the butterfly effect," says Tomás Saraceno. "A butterfly's movement here will make a storm somewhere else."
An artist and architect trained in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saraceno sees the world as a vast interconnected network, a notion that pervades his work. His 2010 installation, 14 Billion, for example, is a collection of beautifully interlinked hand-knotted strands, designed so that disruption to any one thread affects the whole piece. It was the fruit of a collaboration with scientists he met during a residency at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
In an earlier work, Saraceno took inspiration from the three- dimensional structure of webs spun by spiders such as the black widow. He teamed up with researchers to develop models of such webs, then used these models to create 14 Billion, which represents galaxy formation at the start of the universe.
Saraceno's latest work, On Space Time Foam (pictured), now on display at HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy, uses malleable surfaces to explore interconnections between individuals. Constructed of huge transparent balloons that overlap on different levels in the cavernous former factory, the piece allows the audience to experience the invisible links that bind us together by collectively walking, lying or scrambling on the sculpture. "It is a big ecosystem... it makes people aware of their coexistence," he says.
Saraceno not only takes inspiration from science, but also inspires his collaborators to ask new questions. After his NASA residency, he and colleagues submitted a joint proposal to do experiments with spiders on the International Space Station. The proposal was ultimately unsuccessful, but there are likely to be new science-inspired projects on the horizon: Saraceno has just finished a residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On Space Time Foam by Tomás Saraceno, HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy, until 3 February 2013
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The butterfly effect – in giant balloons
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The butterfly effect – in giant balloons
