Tomás Saraceno (born 1973) is an Argentine contemporary artist whose projects consist of floating sculptures, international collaborations, and interactive installations.
For more than two decades, Saraceno has activated projects aimed towards an ethical collaboration with the atmosphere, including the sculpture series Cloud Cities (2002–) and Museo Aero Solar (2007–), a community-organised initiative that transforms waste plastic bags into flying, aerosolar sculptures. These projects later grew into the Aerocene Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to community building, scientific research and artistic experiences. Together with Saraceno in 2020, Aerocene launched the certified, untethered flight Fly with Aerocene Pacha, achieving thirty-two world records across Female and General categories for the flight's distance, duration and altitude—lifted using only the heat of the sun and the air.
Saraceno is also known for his interest in spiders and their webs, which led to the formation of the interdisciplinary community Arachnophilia, a research-driven initiative that refines concepts and ideas related to spider/webs across different forms of knowledge and multiple artistic, scientific and theoretical disciplines. Notably, Saraceno collaborated with researchers at the Photogrammetric Institute of TU Darmstadt to develop the Spider/Web Scan, a novel, tomographic technique that allowed, for the first time ever, precise 3D models to be made of complex spider webs. Through Arachnophilia, Saraceno engages international audiences to develop more profound understandings of the role spiders play within our cosmic web of life, through initiatives such as Mapping Against Extinction as presented in the project's Arachnomancy App.
Education and artistic career Tomás Saraceno studied architecture at Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires between 1992 and 1999, after which he studied art and architecture in a postgraduate program at Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de la Nación Ernesto de la Cárcova – both courses were taken in Buenos Aires. Saraceno then moved to Europe to complete his postgraduate studies at Germany's Städelschule. There, he was directed by Daniel Birnbaum (curator of the 53rd Venice Biennale) and studied under professors Thomas Bayrle and Ben van Berkel.
Saraceno's first installations were exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2002 and again at the Venice Arte Biennale in 2003, as well as at the São Paulo Biennale of 2006. In 2003–2004 Saraceno participated in the course "Progettazione e Produzione delle Arti Visive" (Design and Production of Visual Arts), held by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Olafur Eliasson at Instituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV).
The artist established his studio in Frankfurt am Main in 2005 and later relocated to Berlin in 2012, where he moved into the former administrative building of Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrication (AGFA) in Berlin-Rummelsburg. A team of studio members from multidisciplinary backgrounds, including designers, architects, anthropologists, biologists, engineers, art historians, writers, and musicians, work directly with Saraceno in the studio's hybrid environment.
In 2009, he attended the International Space Studies Program at NASA Center Ames (Silicon Valley, California). That same year, Saraceno exhibited in the 53rd Arte Venice Biennale "Fare Mondi/Making Worlds", curated by Daniel Birnbaum, and won the Calder Prize.
In the past two decades Saraceno has collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum London.
He has lectured in institutions worldwide, and directed the Institute of Architecture‐related Art (IAK) at Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany (2014–2016)
He has held residencies at Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) (2014–2015), MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012–ongoing) and Atelier Calder (2010).
Aerocene The Aerocene Foundation is a non-profit initiative initiated by Tomás Saraceno in 2015, that aims to explore environmental issues scientifically and artistically through a diverse international community of artists, architects, geographers, philosophers, thinkers, speculative scientists, explorers, balloonists and technologists. The project's activities include the testing and circulation of aerosolar sculptures that are lifted into the by the heat of the Sun and infrared radiation from the Earth's surface.
Aerosolar sculptures were officially presented during the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP21, at Grand Palais, Paris, 2015, after that a similar prototype has been tested in November at the White Sands Dunes of New Mexico. On November 8, 2015, it broke world records by achieving the longest and most sustainable certified flight (without fossil-fuel, solar panel, helium or batteries) ever registered: During approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, seven people were lifted up in White Sands' desert landscape. With a net lift of more than 250 kg, the payload of the "D-O AEC Aerocene" solar sculpture has no precedent in the long history of manned solar balloon flight attempts.
The project has evolved from Tomás Saraceno's residency at L'Observatoire de l'Espace, CNES. Led by Saraceno, the project's team is composed of leading scientists and engineers, including collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), Braunschweig University of Technology - Institute of Architecture-related Art (IAK), TBA21 Academy, Red Cross Red Crescent, and numerous universities, research centers, cultural and art institutions, and museums around the world.
Fly with Aerocene Pacha On January 28, 2020, from Salar de Uyuni in Salinas Grandes of Jujuy, Argentina, Saraceno led the world's first manned solar-powered free flight during Fly with Aerocene Pacha.
Using only solar energy and air, pilot Leticia Marques lifted from the ground with Saraceno's aerosolar sculpture titled Aerocene Pacha. Aerosolar balloon technology, free of any dependency on carbon fossil fuel derivatives, utilised the heat of the sun's rays to warm the air inside the balloon, further amplified by the salt lake's reflective white surface. The flight set thirty-two world records within sixteen minutes, certified by The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in Class A (Free balloons) across Female and General categories for the flight's distance, duration and altitude.
The artwork was named Aerocene Pacha, after Saraceno's Aerocene Foundation and the Andean concept of the cosmos, Pacha. Saraceno worked together with local representatives of 33 indigenous communities of the Salinas Grandes for the project, including Tres Pozos, Inti Killa de Tres Morros (El Moreno), Pozo Colorado and San Miguel del Colorado. Members of these communities opened the flight launch event with ritual ceremonies to bless Pachamama – mother earth. They also spoke out to protest the exploitation of their traditional lands and rights by extractive industries. Aerocene Pacha flew bearing their slogan 'Water and life are worth more than lithium.'
Lali Chalabe, a legal representative of the indigenous communities of Salinas Grandes spoke at the event, in addition to Professor Maristella Svampa, an Argentinian writer and theorist specialized in extractivism and indigenous rights.
The experiment was commissioned by the K-Pop superstars BTS, through the global public art project, called CONNECT BTS, which supported art projects in five cities around the world.
Museo Aero Solar The "Museo Aero Solar" group is an open-source international community, initiated in 2008 by Tomás Saraceno in conversation with Alberto Pesavento. The community organizes events around the world to turn plastic bags into lighter-than-air sculptures, creating airborne flying museums. Sending a message for sustainability, Museo Aero Solar retakes and transforms a pollutant. The resulting collection includes more than 20,000 plastic bags culled from countries including Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Palestine, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, amongst others.
Aerosolar sculptures Aerosolar sculptures were officially presented during the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP21, at Grand Palais, Paris, 2015, shortly after the world first prototype (the D-0 AEC) test in the White Sands Dunes of New Mexico. On November 8, 2015, the D-0 AEC made its maiden voyage as the most sustainable flight, without fossil-fuel, solar panel, helium or batteries: During approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, seven people were lifted up in White Sands' desert landscape only through the heat of the sun. With a net lift of more than 250 kg, the payload of the D-0 AEC aerosolar sculpture has no precedent in the long history of manned solar balloon flight attempts.
Aerocene Backpack The Aerocene Backpack is a flight kit. Participants can hack the devices pack, create their own lightweight sensors, and lift them up. Data collected with the Aerocene Backpack can be uploaded and shared with Aerocene's open-source online community, via an interactive website that encourages participants all over the world to share their experiments, photos and videos, comments, and innovations.
Aerocene App Beginning in 2012 and based on a concept and long-term research by artist Tomás Saraceno, the Aerocene App is based on the Float Predictor, an online digital tool developed by the Aerocene Foundation and Studio Tomás Saraceno in collaboration with Lodovica Illari, Glenn Flierl, and Bill McKenna from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), together with Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) with further support from Imperial College London, Radioamateur, and the UK High Altitude Society.
The Aerocene App developed by Tomas Saraceno consists of a global forecasting system using open meteorological data to predict flight paths of aerosolar sculptures circling around the globe without emissions. The app incorporates real-time information from 16-day forecasts of wind speeds at different altitudes.
Arachnophilia Arachnophilia is a not-for-profit, interdisciplinary spider/web research community. Building on the innovations arising from Saraceno's collaborative research into spider/web architectures, materials, modes of vibrational signaling and behaviour, the broad aim of Arachnophilia is to increase visibility and change people's perceptions of spiders and webs within the context of the current ecological crisis.
Hybrid Webs The secondary output of the research conducted in the Arachnid Research Lab are the Hybrid Webs - the collective term for a series of sculptures devised by Saraceno. Each sculpture, made entirely of spider silk is designed to appear as a unique, geometric galaxy floating in infinite space. Creating the sculptures means incorporating webs woven by spiders who are social, asocial or between the two. During the building period, the sculptures are turned onto each side, allowing gravity to aid the interweaving of silk from different sorts of spider. The works' titles reveal the technical specifications of each sculptural element; the genus and species of spiders employed and the time taken by each spider to complete its web. The final sculpture is thereby an emblem of an encounter which might not otherwise have succeeded, and so prompts a reflection on human coexistence with ourselves and the natural world.
Hybrid Webs have been exhibited worldwide: "May you live in interesting times", Venice Biennale, curated by Ralph Rugoff (2019). "ON AIR", Carte blanche to Tomás Saraceno at Palais de Tokyo, curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel (2018-2019).