Tomás Saraceno (049)

The worldwide realization of utopian architecture has been Saraceno‘s guiding theme in recent years. Each of his projects is an element of the utopian large-scale project, Air-Port-City, a lighter than air city of the future. Saraceno  regards this cloud city as a socialist and utopian dream, responding to the growing uninhabitability of the earth due to worldwide population growth and dramatic ecological crises. One of Saraceno's key interests is the scientific observation of environmental, biological and physical systems, and their poetic correlation to human perception and ideas about the living environment. Patterns, which the artist discovers in phenomena ranging from the macro structures of outer space to the micro bio-systems of nature, are read as invitations to alternative ways of organizing life. This recent sculptural work delves into the organic patterning of the seen and unseen, the known and the unknown, alerting one to what might be conceivable by means of hybrid-realization. The natural process by which a spider constructs its web has been referenced as a metaphor for understanding the development, organization and distribution of the universe. Encapsulated within acrylic cubes, intricate and elaborate networks of spider silk are showcased as abstract sculptures. The motifs can be likened to three-dimensional architectural renderings, natural habitats taking unique form by introducing differing species of spiders to preexisting webs. As in nearly all of Saraceno’s projects, these current works were developed in collaboration with scientists: astrophysicists, arachnologists, radiologists, engineers, biologists and others. However, these intricate structures would never occur as such in nature. By introducing by succession various species of spider to the web of another, the artist supervised the development of these unique multi-generational structures. Here Saraceno touches upon key principles of social organization: cooperation, co-habitation and hybridism. It’s an artistic practice that reads as experiment, weaving architecture, biology, network analyses and social behavior into questions of sharing, communicating and building.