Tomas Saraceno’s “On Air” Exhibition: Entrance

Elucidating the Beauty and Mystery of “Spiders” and “Spiderwebs”: Perspectives on Events Sound Installation, 2018. Loudspeaker.

at-tentsion Spiderweb No. 1, 2018. 76 frames of spider silk, carbon fiber, LED lights installation.

at-tentsion Spiderweb No. 2, 2018. 76 frames of spider silk, carbon fiber, LED lights installation.

at-tentsion Spiderweb No. 3, 2018. 76 frames of spider silk, carbon fiber, LED lights installation.

Awareness of Events: Particular Matters Jam Session, 2018. Spiders, spider silk, carbon fiber, LED lights installation.

Aerographies (Air Condition Charts), 2018. Spatial installation.

Aerographies (Air Condition Charts), 2018. Spatial installation.

Detail of Aerographies (Air Condition Charts), 2018. Spatial installation.

there-la-bas, 120x80cm, 2018. Photograph taken in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, 2016. Inkjet print on paper.

there-la-bas, 120x80cm, 2018. Photograph taken in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, 2016. Inkjet print on paper.

The Politics of Solar Rhythms: Cosmic Levitation, 2018. Video, black and white installation.

Thermodynamic Imagination, 2018. Installation.

Thermodynamic Imagination, 2018. Installation.

Thermodynamic Imagination, 2018. Installation.

Thermodynamic Imagination, 2018. Installation.

The most dramatic algo-rhiythms (2018) is a spatial installation featuring a sound-interactive poetic constellation network structure.

The most dramatic algo-rhiythms (2018) is a spatial installation featuring a sound-interactive poetic constellation network structure.

The most dramatic algo-rhiythms (2018) is a spatial installation featuring a sound-interactive poetic constellation network structure.

Audience members playing strings in algo-rhiythms (2018). It is a spatial installation featuring a sound-interactive poetic constellation network structure.

“Aerocene” Display, 2018. Imagining new ways of living in the air, creating possibilities for a beautiful new world without fossil fuels.

Solar Museum, 2018. A large balloon constructed from collaged everyday plastic bags.

Text/Photos by Chen Chi-Hsiang Dates: October 17 to January 6, 2019 Location: Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Have you ever seen spiders and their webs in the outdoors or tucked into eaves? Are spiders artists? Is a spiderweb art? Who knows? Have you never heard the delicate sounds of a spider? This exhibition sparks curiosity, treating these spiders as full participants in the show. Unexpectedly, at the Palais de Tokyo’s “On Air” exhibition, one finds the entire venue covered in spiderwebs (woven by various spiders residing within the Palace itself), allowing visitors to hear the exquisite sounds of the spiders and learn numerous anecdotes about them. This masterpiece belongs to Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno, a spider expert. Through spiderwebs, he elucidates the interconnectedness of human existence and the interdependent relationship between humans and nature. The inspiration drawn from spiders and webs subtly conveys to the world what Kandinsky said: “When human culture develops a crisis, we must return to nature and relearn from it.”

Born in 1973 in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, into a family with a scientific background, Tomas Saraceno is an Argentine contemporary artist based in Germany who has participated in NASA programs. He is renowned for his spectacular networks woven by spiders. His thinking and creative approach are akin to utopianism; he constructs works that defy imagination, offering true praise for nature. At the crossroads of disciplines, he blends poetic forms, architectural dimensions, and scientific structures. His reflections focus primarily on urban lifestyles and how to envision a beautiful new future differently. After obtaining a Master’s degree in Architecture from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, he continued his studies in Europe, attending Städelschule in Frankfurt and later IUAV in Venice for art and architecture. In 2007, he affirmed his creativity with spectacular installations such as Poetic Cosmos Of The Breath. He participated in the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, and during COP21 in 2015, he presented his major work Aerocene, showcasing his environmental vision. Alongside Olafur Eliasson, Saraceno is a leading soul figure in contemporary environmental art. His interdisciplinary creations merge architecture, science, natural sciences, and environmental space exploration, grounded in ecology, demonstrating environmental awareness, innovation, and creativity within a global movement vision.

The “On Air” exhibition functions like a moving ecosystem, conducting various scientific explorations among humans, biology (spiders), and nature (air, wind, sunlight, cosmic dust, stones, etc.). Between nature and science, humans and non-humans, life and non-life, poetry and imagination, the works reveal an interconnected unified world, highlighting fragile rhythms and trajectories that unite these worlds. This exhibition owes its existence to numerous beings—living and non-living—elucidating the natural ecology of coexistence in the universe.

His creation is divided into two main axes: the dramatic “Spiders” and “Spiderwebs,” aiming to learn from nature through webs and imagine a harmonious world of coexistence; and “Aerocene,” which imagines new ways of living in the air, creating possibilities for a beautiful new world without fossil fuels. Poetically rethinking the world we inhabit, he reassesses our way of being human.

Revelations on the Beauty and Mystery of “Spiders” and “Spiderwebs”:

Upon entering, a dark coffee-colored loudspeaker sits on a platform displaying Perspectives on Events: Have you heard the trembling sound of a spider? This is truly a cosmic event; its vibrations are recorded live. Only in silence can one hear the vibrational sounds emitted by a Holocnemus pluchei spider inhabiting the basement of the Palais de Tokyo. Through imagination, people might feel their presence and consider the possibility of dialogue. This work reveals the perceptual range of other species, the sensitivity of other beings in the cosmic web, reminding us that we are all part of it.

In the main hall, at-tentsion presents a pitch-black space filled with dozens of mixed-media spiderwebs of varying sizes. Are they carved or found objects? These beautiful, natural constellations-like networks were woven by various types of spiders residing in the Palais de Tokyo. Their diverse forms extend in all directions, constructing a floating, beautiful, and mysterious landscape. The webs become places where sensory worlds meet, extensions of feeling, habitats, sensitive hearing, sending and receiving vibrations—perhaps ideas—a way for them to connect with the world. In this exhibition, these spiders are considered full participants. It is said that over 500 spiders reside in the Palais de Tokyo; these constellation networks invite us to reflect on our coexistence with them.

Next, Sounds of Air is a light, poetic spatial installation acting as an instrument, composed of five slender, soft threads that float and resonate in the air. Under a series of forces and conditions, the space and its dynamics change: invisible movements caused by temperature changes, or those triggered by the audience's breath. By converting vibrations into sound frequencies, this device allows us to hear the voice of the air.

The artist states: "Looking at spiders, I realized I am part of a constantly evolving ecosystem... It makes me question how humans find their place in nature, coexisting with other organisms rather than dominating them. In this exhibition, I try to share, pay attention to others, amplify some usually unheard voices, still in the air, those invisible particles. For me, observing, preserving, revealing these spiderwebs, uncovering their beauty according to the diversity of species' forms, is to show that we are surrounded by incredible works of art!" (Note 1)

The most dramatic piece, algo-rhiythms, immerses the audience in a super-large spiderweb constructed from geometric forms of string lines, inspired by associations with spiderwebs and extended geometric shapes. It is a spatial installation featuring a sound-interactive poetic constellation network structure, altering our perspective on natural phenomena. This innovative work invites audiences to improvise musical performances; fingers lightly pluck the strings, each producing different tones and scales, matching the rhythm around them. Each line has a different frequency generating resonance, some audible, others sounding like vibrations. Subsonic amplifiers turn the floor into a giant shell; lying down, our bodies become a vast beach, and the vibrating membrane shifts our attention to other modes of perception. Improvisation becomes an unexpected encounter with the network.

Exploration of Air and the Challenge of the Anthropocene with “Aerocene”:

The entire exhibition acts as a whole, revealing the intensity of entities in the air and how they affect us: from carbon dioxide (CO2) to cosmic dust, from infrastructure and radio frequencies to new corridors and aerial mobility. These invisible stories constitute the essence of what we belong to; they invite us to poetically rethink how we inhabit this world—and reassess our way of being human. (Note 2)

Air is the wisest and most mesmerizing subject of exploration for artist Tomas Saraceno. These invisible substances constitute the essence belonging to all living beings on Earth and represent the new elements and challenges for humanity's survival in the post-industrial era. The basement gallery features Awareness of Events: Particular Matters Jam Session, a complex series of scientific experimental devices exploring air, attempting to capture permanently agitated airborne matter. How can we hear the movement of floating particles? A beam of light illuminates household, ground, and cosmic air particles. Cameras record their position and speed in real-time, and this data is transmitted through a series of speakers in the exhibition space set to different music. Here, vibrations of the web-spider combination are constructed, live broadcasts of dolphin sounds from the Mediterranean seabed are played, and the air mixed by the movement and breathing of live audiences is integrated. It allows us to view the world as a complex material composition, inseparable from humanity.

The innovative Aerographies wall features a large series of pencil sketches of various spiderwebs. Lightweight transparent plastic balloons float in the space, with pencils tied beneath them, writing and recording air condition charts as they move with the airflow. Here, different methods are tested to see how human, non-human, and wind movements influence the air around them. As balloons float due to natural and human activity conditions, the air status tracked by nature-drawn aerography charts clearly shows that these many traces and image characteristics form an epoch of the Anthropocene.

Aerocene Development is an object capable of floating in the air without burning any fossil fuels, helium, or hydrogen. It is equipped with several sensors capable of measuring temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure mass. It is an object built in a continuous, open, and collective manner, a poetic tool to imagine a new era without fossil energy.

Thermodynamic Imagination (Spatial installation of large and small balloons with subtle light projections): Pitch black, placing one as if in the starry cosmos, several small black spherical planets float, surrounded by a series of geometric objects. Circular spheres and the silhouettes of the audience are projected onto the walls, amidst magnificent, eternal illusions of light and shadow. Witnessing a sequence of eclipses within the planetary shadows, viewers feel as if they are in the universe. This evokes thermodynamic principles; thermodynamics is a branch of physics studying heat and energy. In this spatial installation, viewers are reminded of the connection between Earth and the Sun, relying on a reciprocal relationship of coexistence between their elements and influences.

“Aerocene” is an international multidisciplinary community imagining borderless, new ways of existence without fossil energy. This space promotes self-directed or collective hands-on practices through workshops and participatory activities. These workshops pose a fundamental question: What does it feel like to breathe in a post-fossil energy era?

In this era of industrial predatory exploitation, where Earth's resources are depleted, threatening the natural ecological environment essential for all coexistence, “Aerocene” is a movement initiated by artist Tomás Saraceno as an international open-source project. It is a multidisciplinary artistic project aimed at reviving shared imagination and working on atmospheric and environmental ethics, inviting collective participation in coordination activities. Responding to the human world, it describes the unprecedented challenges facing our era and begins to review the global impact of human activities on Earth's ecosystems. He envisions a new era in Earth's history where ecological consciousness, morality, and environmental policy become primary social values. Starting from this new historical era, Aerocene offers new forms of movement and sensation, coordinated with solar energy, wind power, and infrared radiation. This is why the Aerocene Explorer sculpture floats without using solar panels, batteries, helium, hydrogen, or other rare gases, and without burning fossil fuels. In this sense, they follow the most basic energetic movements of our planet and its nearest star, making citizen-led environmental research possible and providing new reasons for aerial mobility. (Note 3)

Note 1: Telerame Stephane Renault 16/10/2018. Note 2: Curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel exhibition press release. Note 3: Curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel exhibition press release. Note - Full text refers to the exhibition press release.