Liminal Materials: The Cloud Project

"Immersion, the experience of being physically submerged in another world or environment, is above all a sensory experience, relying on our senses of space and physicality.

VR technologies are one approach to achieve this, but another is to augment our shared physical space with digitally mediated content; a form of _augmented space_. Borrowing from areas as diverse as theatre and secret cinema, to installation art and Museum exhibits, this is a well-trodden path to immersion that also allows for a highly intuitive, social and in many cases engaging form of immersion. No headsets, but a collective physical experience of immersion.

Squidsoup's has for many years sought to create such immersive social spaces using a variety of media and techniques. Our _Ocean of Light_ project uses 3D arrays of thousands of individually controlled lights to create highly immersive, social, walkthrough and responsive experiences to great effect. _The Cloud Project_ seeks to do the same, but using smoke/mist/fog/clouds rather than LEDs.

We want to create a controllable cloud form, or plume of smoke. We plan to use digitally managed feedback systems to create the cloud, but we want it to be a physical cloud form, in real space.

Fog, haze, smoke and dry ice have been used in the entertainment industry for decades. The techniques are beginning to evolve, with experiences such as Universal Studio's Twister experience, through to companies like Magic Mist exploring novel uses for high pressure misting systems. Artists such as Fujiko Nakaya, Anthony McCall, Ann Veronica Janssens and even Antony Gormley have been using fog and mist for many years, but recently digital artists such as Kimchi and Chips have been incorporating mist as a key feature in visualising dynamic volumetric form.

_But no-one is really trying to harness the form of the cloud itself._

A controllable cloud form can be used in a range of ways.It can be a presence itself within immersive experiences, but also as part of a range of multimedia approaches; combined with lights (LEDs, lasers), used as a moving projection surface to simulate 2D or 3D visuals, or shot through with lasers; used to mask or frame physical architecture."