Printed mathematised clouds, complimented by traces of feet walking toward a horizon of ink, steeped in the sonic echoes and algorithmic disturbances of a multispecies gathering. Echoes from the Croatian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018, where the installation Cloud Pergola / The Architecture of Hospitality crossed the boundaries of architecture, art, engineering, robotic fabrication and computational models. Created by Alisa Andrašek, Vlatka Horvat, and FoAM. Curated by Bruno Juričić & Branka Benčić. Including excerpts from Ephemeral Garden by FoAM and Cloud Pergola by Alisa Andrašek

A pergola. A permeable edge, a transition, an archway. Lightweight struts and trailing plants. The bitter scents of herbs, acacia and asparagus fill the air buzzing with pollinators. Light and shadow overlap, wiggling, shimmering. Light softened with shades of shadow. Never completely one or the other, never the same. A continuously shifting field of relationships. An uninterrupted flow between inner and outer landscapes. Awakening with daylight, buzzing with activity throughout the day, quieting at dusk. A temporary refuge committed to the gradual dissolution of its boundaries. A symbiotic zone, porous and promiscuous. Porous to the point of becoming ephemeral.

Inspired by the cloud formations and weather events, this mathematized cloud plays with visitor’s perception. Movement through the structure generates a series of dynamic interference views in its deep fabric, drifts and ruptures in visibility. A sea of redirecting vectors is pulling the visitor like an invisible gravity force through the fabric. Alisa Andrašek

An immersive environment, where robotically printed mathematised clouds are complimented by traces of feet walking toward a horizon of ink, infused with a soundscape reminiscent of a panpsychic gathering under a pergola. Pattern and noise, surface and interference, bits and bites commingle to create an uncanny experience.

Simultaneously inviting and distancing, the familiar construct of a pergola becomes an alien latticework as interpreted by a swarm of computational agents. Chaotic weather morphed into recyclable plastics. The voices of markets and waves convoluted by enchanted silicon. Yet for all of its otherworldly fragility, the human condition seeps through the whiteness of the clouds. The imprint of a foot, the laughter of a child, the stain on the floor or a slightly leaning column.

The architecture of hospitality, a porous structure and an imperfect process, an invitation to fill its gaps with other lives, memories, experiences.

Conviviality emerges effortlessly under its shade. A graduated sense of closeness that includes those at a distance and those that hide in plain sight. Gregarious gatherings, lazy retreats, boisterous feasts. People come and go, the noise rises and subsides. Cooking, chewing, chattering, toasting, swiping, sprawling, strolling, splashing, calling. The hum of Earth-bound entities grows abundant, indifferent to human susurrus. Mosquitoes, wasps, flies, trees, grasses, vines, limestone, agate, calcite. Foreign rhythms of incomprehensible tongues meld into a pleasant cacophony. A soundscape of layered conversations. Signaling, interpreting, misinterpreting.

Beneath and between it all, the noise of life unfolding. A thick, almost viscous silence. The rich texture of being present in the world. Discordant harmonics of inebriated revelry. Out there (right here) beyond human perception, rocks flow fluidlike and dust speaks to dew, voices trailing in the wind, barely heard.

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