Challenge

Humans are generating undeniable and unprecedented negative impacts on the environment at a global scale, greatly disrupting ecosystems, climate, biodiversity and exacerbating species extinction.

How can we imagine a new infrastructure based on interdisciplinary collaborations that will challenge and redefine international mobility, free our environment from fossil fuels and allow freedom of movement between countries?

Journey

Aerocene is an interdisciplinary artistic endeavor developed by artist Tomás Saraceno and the Aerocene Foundation. It raises awareness about the effects of fossil fuels and proposes ways to jointly address challenges we are all facing in the Anthropocene epoch. Aerocene holds a message of simplicity, creativity and collaboration to rethink solutions for the increasing amount of geopolitical challenges, reminding us of our symbiotic relationship with the Earth and all its species. It is an open invitation to come together declaring our independence from CO2 emissions.

Aerocene’s air-fueled sculptures are a synthesis of art, science, technology and environmental awareness. They become buoyant and can achieve the longest emission-free journey around the world inflated only by air, lifted only by the sun and carried only by the wind bringing us towards a clean and sustainable future. As an open-source project and a participatory community, Aerocene promotes and builds common links between social and environmental ecologies to inspire sustainable solutions. Aerocene holds two world records for fully solar powered manned flights (White Sands, New Mexico, 2015).

Art4Action provides continuous support to expand the Aerocene global community of partners and participatory activities. Together, we have expanded collaborations with policymakers and innovators in international organizations, governments, businesses and global forums such as the European Union (EU), International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).  We catalyzed a unique collaboration between Aerocene and the EU Commission. Following the meeting between Barbara Bulc, Tomás Saraceno and Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner for Transport at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, we shaped Aerocene’s engagement at the EU Future of Mobility Summit held 25-27 April 2018 in Slovenia (Ten-T Days 2018) to inspire radically new strategies for sustainable transport networks and connectivity across Europe towards a fossil-free future. As part of our continuous support, Barbara Bulc participated at the Aerocene Symposium on 24 October 2018 during the ON AIR exhibition by Tomás Saraceno at Palais de Tokyo.

We are excited to continue building collective action with Aerocene community, join us!

Impact

• Aerosolar human flights at different venues around the world
• Aerocene Explorer Toolkit, a specially designed backpack for personal educational and solar-powered atmospheric exploration, allowing everyone to launch a sculpture, take aerial photography, measure atmospheric conditions and collect data
• Aerocene Flight Predictor offers participation in virtual journeys around the world; launched at the World Economic Forum 2017, it allows users to visualize data by illustrating trajectories or predicting landing sites as if travelling with one of the Aerocene sculptures
• Visualization of new data offers the possibility to collect and share information about the atmosphere and its currents such as tracing meteorological patterns or sampling airborne biodiversity; developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Interconnected global community building a new ecosystem with no borders for a fossil fuel free future

Additional Resources:

About Aerocene

About Tomás Saraceno

About the EU Future of Mobility Summit, 2018

About Aerocene Symposium at Palais de Tokyo, 2018

With Spiders and Space Dust, Tomás Saraceno takes off, The New York Times, 2018