Stephen and I were asking questions about the relevance of architectural theory relational to ever-dynamic technological worldviews. Forensic Architecture's exhibition Cloud Studies was on view at The Whitworth, Manchester, from 2 July to 17 October 2021. We visited and reviewed the exhibition. Read the full article in ARQ.
Cite:
Shayya, F., & Walker, S. (2021). On Cloud Studies. Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 25(3), 204–211. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135913552200001X
A foam model by Forensic Architecture showing the morphology of smoke plumes resulting from the aerial bombardment of the Al Tannur neighbourhood in Rafah, Palestine (image by author taken on 14.10.21 at the Cloud Studies exhibition at The Whitworth).
“Rather than concerning stable states and inert matter, the architectural here becomes an associational methodology for facilitating or denying human gatherings by modulating flows and delineating accessible and inaccessible territories. Clouds can perform such associations ‘of an architectural character’: to modulate flows, regulate milieux, and territorialise space – only without walls, and with varying degrees of fuzziness, temporariness – and, indeed, lethality.1
This is how the research agency Forensic Architecture (FA) renders clouds architectural, and what their latest exhibition ‘Cloud Studies’ recounts. In FA’s investigations exhibited here, smoke dims the sunlight and pollutes the air across entire urban areas (such as nineteenth-century European cities and Indonesian islands). Toxic aerosols significantly increase the risk of cancer across vast regions (the Mississippi River, the Palestinian territories). And tear gas creates no-trespass territories along borders and fringes (Gaza, Santiago). The thicker the smoke, the more our visibility is reduced. But as Cloud Studies demonstrates, there are other, invisible clouds that should also demand our attention [1, 2]. The longer their chemical decomposition, the longer the mutations and suffering. The greater their toxicity, the higher the numbers of casualties and fatalities.”
1 Albena Yaneva, ‘The “Architectural” as a Type of Connector: A Realist Approach to Architecture’, Perspecta, 42 (2010), 141–5 (p. 145).
