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Artist creates beautiful indoor clouds
Cloud gazing is no longer an activity reserved for the outdoors, thanks to these life-like but surreal indoor clouds created by artist Berndnaut Smilde.
Tue, Mar 06 2012 at 10:47 PM
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NIMBUS II: Artist Berndnaut Smilde has perfected the art of generating an indoor cloud. (Photos courtesy of Berndnaut Smilde)
These stunning photos of indoor clouds might look like digital creations, but they're actually of real scenes created by Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde.
The clouds are generated using a smoke machine, but Smilde must carefully monitor a room's humidity and atmosphere in order to get the smoke to hang so elegantly, and with such life-like form. Backlighting is used to bring out shadows from within the cloud, to give it that look of a looming and ominous rain cloud.
"I wanted to make the image of a typical Dutch raincloud inside a space," Smilde told Gizmag. "I'm interested in the ephemeral aspect of the work. It's there for a brief moment and then the cloud falls apart. The work only exists as a photograph."
The effect is enhanced by Smilde's choice of setting. For his original work utilizing this method, titled "Nimbus" and first presented in 2010, the artist chose an empty studio with blue walls and a red floor (shown below). The blue walls produce the surreal impression that the clouds are trapped within an enclosed sky. Their ethereal space is preserved, however, by the sharp contrast with the red floor.
Smilde's "Nimbus II," produced this year (shown below), is also produced within an empty space. But for this setting the artist chose an empty warehouse with the ambiance of a chapel. The cloud hangs beautifully, backlit like a levitating angel. Uncovered windows produce a faint greyish blue light which does not impede upon the shine seemingly sourced from the cloud itself. The room remains darkened while the cloud glows, as if it were suspended in daylight-- a juxtaposition which enhances the phantasmagorical impression of the scene.
In both settings, the clouds seem to impart the existence of a fleeting, ethereal form into an otherwise desolate space. Smilde says his purpose was to give form to "physical presence found within transitional space."
You can view more of artist Berndnaut Smilde's works at his website here.
Also on MNN: 14 artists inspired by nature
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I can make one of those with a cigarette.
it's smoke, not a cloud.
It's a cloud of smoke.
these indoor clouds are really amazing. they look just like outdoor clouds.
Sigh, I remember my first FumeFX render.....
Simple rooms. Turn ambient occlusion on and you get this.
Seems like a nice place to propose to a beautiful mademoiselle.
Don't you think?
yay clouds! lol at jimvsmij.......yes i build buildings to surround the weather all the time. some call it a hobby, but i call it art. i have a photo of a tornado inside a cathedral that i'll be posting pretty soon. sometimes, i'm even able to capture the sun.
Cool, but could you make it rain inside?
NASA's space shuttle assembly building in Florida is so large that rain clouds have formed inside the building and workers experience indoor rain from time to time.
Q: Has it ever rained in the Vehicle Assembly Building?
A: Contrary to popular myth, it has never rained inside
the enclosed Vehicle Assembly Building. It has rained inside if the large
doors were open.
This is fantastic. is there a way you can share this with others who would like to do this for ecospiritual events?
whatever and however, it looks great and is appealing....
Fake. All he did was find a nice looking cloud and build a gigantic sized room to around it. It only looks like a small cloud because he cleverly disguised the size and scale of the room. That tiny ant you see in the bottom left corner is actually a person. Nothing special here.
as an eco / holistic home designer I always incorporate natural elements into my design work, but this takes it to a whole new level. ...beautiful interior cloud gazing!
this should have been titled "The real "Cloud" technology."
It is really interesting looking but in the Pacific Northwest we come inside to escape the clouds.
I like it ...