Artist Berndnaut Smilde creates indoor clouds in ATLAS Black Box

a2-960w-3clouds-7-15-15

Three video frame stills show a cloud expand and float in the ATLAS Black Box experimental studio

In April 2015, Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde made brief, beautiful white clouds in the ATLAS Black Box experimental studio by using a fog machine in combination with the careful adjustment of the room’s humidity and lighting.

Smilde commented, “I wanted to see how clouds grow, change shape and reflect light… The ATLAS Black box was perfect for this as we could easily change lighting and run tests on how the smoke circulates. We shot at different speeds and lighting conditions. It was great fun.”

clouds-640w-Smilde-7-22-15

(1st and 4th image) Artist Berndnaut Smilde sprays moisture into the air in preparation for cloud-making. (2nd and 3rd image) Bret Mann captures the expansive movements of a cloud with a high-speed camera capable of shooting up to 960 frames per second (fps). For this project, a frame rate of 240 fps was used. (3rd image) Smilde and Mann set up their shot with a Sony FS700 camera.

His unique cloud-generating technique was captured in slow-motion video by ATLAS technical manager Bret Mann. “Because of the low lighting conditions in combination with the high-speed camera we used, it was probably one of the most challenging projects I’ve shot,” Mann said.

The ATLAS video footage will be part of an upcoming program of Arts District, a weekly arts and culture broadcast of Rocky Mountain PBS (RMPBS), channel six.

Smilde was here in Boulder thanks to an artist-in-residence program sponsored by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) and the Swoon International Residency.

Regarding Smilde’s work, Time Magazine has said, “It evokes both the surrealism of Magritte and the classical beauty of the old masters while reminding us of the ephemerality of art and nature.”

The ATLAS Black Box experimental studio – a highly flexible, state-of-the-art performance and exhibit space – is curated and managed by the ATLAS Center for Media, Arts and Performance. It helps to fulfill ATLAS Institute’s mission of bringing creative uses of technology to all aspects of society – including the performing arts.