CLOUDBUSTER PROJECT

source: manuelraedercouk

‘Cloudbuster Project Maroc’, Christoph Keller

we started the cloudbuster-operations in the night between tuesday and wednesday from hicham’s compound and it took another day to the night until the first raindrops fell. we had a great new metal-tripod built in the meantime in amizmiz. the following day we moved operations upstream from tizfrit. it was usually hicham, fahd and i conducting the operations and discussing the way to proceed. dense clouds appeared during that day and in the night a strange ring of dark clouds was to be seen over this region, of which the villagers said that they had never seen the like before. rainshowers set in at night, this time even stronger, and hail fell locally in the area where we made the operations. the next day, friday, we had a big public operation planned in the village of tizfrit. hicham had spoken to the elders and they all agreed. so we placed the mobile cloudbuster unit on the village’s main square, a dirt platform next to the wadi, surrounded by a little shed with the sign “teleboutique”, another one with a coca-cola painting, the mosque and a private house. all the villagers came: the elder men, the young men, the women with the girls a bit further away and, of course, the kids. tea was brought and we started the operations with the cloudbuster. dark clouds appeared, so we tried to condense them further and to close the gaps between them. strong cold winds set in during the operation and the first rain fell already. the people of the village took part and discussed what was going on. at the end of the operation the sky was nearly dark from the clouds. hicham, fahd and i turned our coats inside out as it is a pre-islamic tradition to help make it rain. some of the men did the same and sang the rain-prayer salat al-istisqa’. the kids chanted the rain-song (come, rain, rain…). back in the house of hicham we were all feeling cold and a bit exhausted. during dinner it began to rain and the rain then grew stronger and heavier until it even leaked through several spots of the roof of the house. the next day the sky was spotless and blue again. the operations were conducted from march 16th to 22nd, 2008 in the atlas region around the village of tizfrit in the municipality of amizmiz, approximately 55 km south of marrakech.
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source: imperialacuk

German artist Christoph Keller’s Cloudbuster Project was installed yesterday on a roof of the Blackett Laboratory, as part of the Royal College of Art’s Again For Tomorrow exhibition. The installation re-enacts an invention of psychologist Wilhelm Reich that he claimed could influence the atmosphere and make clouds burst into rain.

Christoph Keller aims his Cloudbuster at the sky above Imperial
Keller, who studied physics and hydrology in his native Berlin, first unveiled Cloudbuster in New York in the spring and summer of 2003 and was attracted to the project because it unites his dual passion for science and the arts. Commenting that it is a mistake to separate the two, he said:

“Studying physics raises many questions of philosophy and there is a fascinating dialogue between the disciplines. That’s why Exhibition Road is such an appropriate place for this installation – Imperial along with the museums and the RCA make it a dynamic area, all to do with where we are scientifically and culturally.”

An early Freudian, Wilhelm Reich believed Freud’s idea of the ‘libido’ was a literal energy force and in the 1930s announced his discovery of a new biological energy which he named Orgone energy. Claiming that flowing water has a positive Orgone charge, he unveiled a metal structure connected with hosepipes, believing this charge could be directed to an area of sky where it would stimulate rain.

Keller keeps an open mind on whether the experiment really works, believing that there may be room for perceiving weather in both a meteorological and a mythological way. He added:

“When I first developed this installation it was on the roof of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where construction work was also taking place. At first the workers laughed at me – then after two weeks the work was halted because of continuous rainfall.”
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source: wikipedia

Christoph Keller (* 1967 in Freiburg) ist ein deutscher Künstler.

Keller studierte von 1987 bis 1992 Mathematik, Physik und Hydrologie in Freiburg, Berlin und Santiago de Chile. Von 1993 bis 1996 war Keller Mitglied der interdisziplinären Gruppe Botschaft e.V. Berlin. Von 1993 bis 1995 studierte er freie Kunst an der HdK Berlin bei Katharina Sieverding, gefolgt von einem postgradualen Studiengang an der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln. Seit 1994 zahlreiche Ausstellungen im In- und Ausland.

Derzeit lebt und arbeitet Christoph Keller in Berlin.

Ein zentrales Thema der künstlerischen Arbeiten von Christoph Keller ist die Untersuchung der Wissenschaften und ihrer Randgebiete, den sog. Grenzwissenschaften und der Scharlatanerie.[1] Ausgehend von alten wissenschaftlichen Lehrfilmen befasste sich Keller in „Encyclopaedia Cinematographica“ (2001) und „Archives as Objects as Monuments“ (2000) mit der Frage der Ordnung und Dokumentation des Wissens vom Leben. In „Expedition-Bus and Shaman-Travel“ (2002), bei der ein verspiegelter Campingbus im Mittelpunkt stand, ging es um die Frage, ob die Untersuchung des Fremden – in diesem Fall der Schamanismus – letztendlich stets die eigenen Positionen und Voraussetzungen reflektiert. Im Rahmen des „Cloudbuster-Project“ (2003) reproduzierte er die Experimente Wilhelm Reichs zur Beeinflussung der Atmosphäre mit Orgonenergie [2]. Spätere Projekte untersuchen die Hypnose und Kinematografie („Hypnosis-Film-Project“, 2006) sowie Verschwörungstheorien im Internet („The Chemtrails Phenomenon“ 2006, „The Whole Earth“ 2007).