Big Data and Cloud Culture - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 225

Coda: Clouds Are in the Air
The cloud metaphor has always played a role in our literary and artistic
traditions. But I cannot help but think that this is a time when the image
of the cloud holds a particularly important cultural prominence. Perhaps it
is the debate over climate change. After all, cloud cover is a major uncer-
tainty in forecasting future climate. Perhaps it is the media's fascination
with weather coverage, especially when natural disaster strikes. It may
also have to do with growing awareness of cloud computing. That the
metaphorical cloud, as well as the literal one, is in the air was evident on a
2012 trip to New York City where, on a visit to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, I observed a modern classic of cloud culture and one aspiring to
join that category. The irst was an exhibition of Andy Warhol's Silver
Clouds , comprising a room full of helium-illed metal “pillows” loating
gently, like fair-weather clouds on a spring day. Warhol began work on
his clouds after the scientist he worked with, Billy Klüver of Bell Labs,
convinced Warhol that his original idea, loating lightbulbs, would not
work. Rather than drop the project, Warhol reportedly responded immedi-
ately with, “Let's make clouds” (“The Warhol: Silver Clouds” 2010). The
result was one of the great modern collaborations between an artist and
an engineer, a work of art whose pieces loat through a room and gently
bump up against one another and their observers. The metallic exterior
creates an initial surprise because metal objects are not supposed to loat
on air. This feeling quickly gives way to a sense of random movement
that has been captured formally by dance companies after the 1968 suc-
cess of Merce Cunningham's ensemble dressed in costumes designed by
Warhol's artist friend Jasper Johns. But it is also expressed informally, as
any observer of a Silver Cloud installation notices when normally station-
ary museum-goers cannot help but dance their way, however awkwardly,
around the cloud-illed room.
That same day took me up to the rooftop garden of the Met, where
more artistic clouds attracted large crowds. This time it was Tomás Sara-
ceno's installation Cloud City , a collection of large, connected modules
built with relective and transparent material that rise from the ground
and invite observers to climb among them. 10 The sight of groups of us
climbing through a network of clouds, relecting our images many times
over, as we rose above the city, was beautiful, particularly because we were