Tomás Saraceno: Would you live in a floating city in the sky?
Tomás Saraceno: ¿Vivirías en una burbuja flotando en el cielo?
Tomás Saraceno invites us to consider the impossible, like spiders that play music or cities in the sky. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
in a thin layer of water,
de una fina capa de agua,
as if you're floating among the clouds.
como si se flotara
when the horizon disappears;
I woke up from a dream,
were also reflected on the water.
se reflejaban sobre el agua.
among the stars.
sobre las estrellas.
the stars reverberated under my feet.
las estrellas reverberaban bajo mis pies.
among clouds of galaxies.
are not just clouds of galaxies
no son solo nubes de galaxias,
we're leaving on the planet.
que estamos dejando en el planeta.
is making a global impact
de algunos hombres
sobre los ecosistemas terrestres.
de nubes tóxicas, contaminantes,
of toxic clouds that float in the air,
from carbon dioxide emissions
de dióxido de carbono;
oil, carbon, gas --
el petróleo, el carbón y el gas;
among the clouds.
con flotar entre las nubes.
otros tipos de nubes,
other types of clouds,
about that photo, I'll explain:
de la imagen y debo aclarar:
or photomontage -- something weird.
un fotomontaje, una cosa rara.
What is reality?
¿Qué es la realidad?
interested in reality.
no están interesados en la realidad;
of the human essence.
to any form of reality.
a cualquier forma de realidad;
from their desires."
to float among the clouds?
a flotar entre las nubes?
building a flying museum.
With plastic bags?
¿con bolsitas de plástico?
all over the world,
alrededor del mundo,
bolsas de plástico usadas --
"The Aero-Solar Museum."
de una forma radicalmente nueva,
in a radically new way,
between the interior and the exterior
or helium or hydrogen;
ni helio ni hidrógeno;
clean and accessible to the whole world
y accesible a todo el mundo
with 120 engineers.
en la NASA en el 2009
when you go up in a plane,
cuando se suben en los aviones:
es muy, muy grande.
with the plastic bags, saying,
con las bolsitas de plástico,
de poder entenderlo.
understanding the concept.
the violence of the Anthropocene
la violencia del Antropoceno
live together in the air,
con la atmósfera y con el planeta Tierra.
this backpack today.
that we also refer to as a sculpture.
lo llamamos una escultura.
we can go out and fly --
in Vancouver isn't --
que cuando se mueve
you have to feel it,
y después lo podemos medir.
of the atmosphere,
all over the world
alrededor del mundo
the temperature and the environment,
la temperatura y el medio ambiente,
species in the air;
hacia la atmósfera
towards the atmosphere,
desde Alemania hasta Polonia
from Germany to Poland,
del que nos podemos imaginar.
than what we imagined;
está tan regulado y militarizado
the heat of the sun
con el calor del Sol
will be getting the permits
será pedir los permisos
of each of the different countries
del Cambio Climático, COP21 en París,
all over the world.
alrededor del mundo.
to arrive at our destination?
movernos con el viento
hemos desarrollado un programa
the wind highways.
las autopistas de los vientos.
to Berlin from Vancouver,
desde Vancouver a Berlín,
is choose an altitude.
es elegir una altura.
hay diferentes direcciones
there are different directions
la naranja, el pasado, y ahí va.
and the orange, the day after tomorrow.
para regresar a Berlín
to fly back to Berlin --
solo con los vientos,
from the center of Berlin
del centro de Berlín
por las corrientes de los vientos.
that we drew with the wind
que dibujamos con el viento
"Independence from Fossil Fuels Day."
de los Combustibles Fósiles.
are experiencing the air
los que estamos sintiendo el aire
el Día de la Tierra
el Día del Aire:
the sculptures are,
cuánto más grandes son las esculturas,
that's been heated by the sun.
to build gardens in the air.
a construir jardines en el aire.
the size of the earth?
del tamaño de la Tierra?
floating among the clouds?
flotando entre las nubes?
isn't just a technological challenge;
the freedom of movement between countries,
entre los países
social, cultural and military restrictions
sociales, culturales y militares
y no depende de ninguna soberanía.
que nos puede llevar
that allows us to create these places.
Metropolitan de Nueva York,
of Art in New York.
spaces be like?
espacios transnacionales.
we need to learn how to move within them,
everyone else's movements;
la forma de moverse de los demás;
between people
provoca que el espacio
72 feet in the air.
a 22 metros de altura.
get too close together,
se acercaban demasiado,
terminaban afectadas,
that we build nets that connect us.
donde construimos redes
when we have to face the void,
about this exhibit
de esta instalación
estas nuevas "aero-grafías".
for the first time.
de una bomba atómica.
una nube de partículas radioactivas,
disseminated all over the earth,
of the Anthropocene era.
el 8 de noviembre de 2015,
using only the sun,
solo con la acción del Sol,
se elevaba del horizonte,
estuviera invertida;
toward the center of the earth,
el centro de la Tierra,
when he walked on the moon,
cuando pisó la luna, dijo:
que tenemos que dar hoy en día?
but radically different;
full of air and wishes,
con una bolsa llena de aire
to independence from fossil fuels
de los combustibles fósiles
en otros planetas
on other planets
in the atmosphere of this one.
caminar estos juntos.
much further than the moon,
nos van a llevar
with our feet on the ground.
con los pies sobre la Tierra.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Tomás Saraceno - ArtistTomás Saraceno invites us to consider the impossible, like spiders that play music or cities in the sky.
Why you should listen
Tomás Saraceno’s oeuvre could be seen as an ongoing research informed by the worlds of art, architecture, natural sciences, astrophysics and engineering. His floating sculptures, community projects and interactive installations propose and explore new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment.
Aerocene, an open-source community project for artistic and scientific exploration initiated from Saraceno's vision, becomes buoyant only by the heat of the sun and infrared radiation from the surface of earth. In 2015, Saraceno achieved the world record for the first and longest certified fully-solar manned flight. During the past decade, he has initiated collaborations with renowned scientific institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, and institutions of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group, among them Imperial College and the Natural History Museum London.
Saraceno lectures in institutions worldwide and directed the Institute of Architecture-related Art (IAK) at Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany (2014–2016). He was the first person to scan, reconstruct and re-imagine spiders' weaved spatial habitats, and he possesses the only three-dimensional spider web collection to existence. He has held residencies at Centre National d’Études Spatiales (2014–2015), MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012–ongoing) and Atelier Calder (2010), among others. In 2009, Saraceno attended the International Space Studies Program at NASA Ames. The same year he presented a major installation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and was later awarded the prestigious Calder Prize. Saraceno's work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin; among others.
Tomás Saraceno | Speaker | TED.com