one day site specific installation, styrofoam spray foam on wire mesh

September, 2013 at Olana for “Groundswell – Framing the Viewshed” – the exhibition was organized by The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm’s WGXC-FM.

“formlessly huge and towering it hangs”

from the program notes: Intrigued by F. Church’s efforts to “improve” his surroundings, with their installation Clouds, eteam considers a view, thinks about nature in metaphors, and grabs the clouds

randomly, in an effort to comprehend. Writes eteam, “Clouds were first identified by Luke Howard in 1803. Where there had been atmospheric circumstances before, now were identifiable layers, heaps and feathers of the stratus: the cumulus, the cirrus, the nimbus and its mixtures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was enthusiastic about this scientific breakthrough, and yet, when Dr. Faust arrives in heaven in the Second Part of the Tragedy a couple of years later, the technical terms of scientific systematization have dissolved again and Goethe’s clouds have returned to their elastic and ambiguous state, used to elude rationales of mental grasp. We think about the cloud as an elusive metaphor for the Internet, and nod, when we read on Wikipedia that ‘Cloud computing is a jargon term without a commonly accepted non-ambiguous scientific or technical definition,’ that brings us back to Faust.”

In 1999 The Olana Partnership and other organizations raised concerns about the construction of a large industrial power plant across the river from Olana. The Athens Generating Plant was ultimately built, but significant mitigation efforts were implemented because of Olana, including a reduction in smokestack height to preserve the ridgeline view, the use of natural building material colors, and a decision to use wet (vs. dry) cooling in order to minimize the smoke plume effect.