Self-Portrait through Cloud City, at the Met 2012

Cloud City on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a gravity defying structure that provokes a dizzying sense of disorientation.  It delicately balances being supported while elevated with an uneasy sensation of feeling lost and weightless, floating high above central park in a cloud-filled maze made for one. (Actually, 15  people can go up at a time, but they spread you out so you do feel alone up there.)  Every surface within the module is a riddle, only deciphered through touch. The walls are mirrors reflecting the infinite sky,  a window to the world above and below, or a hidden doorway that leads you higher and higher. It’s maddening and relaxing and unstable, yet spectacular. I have to hand it to Tomás Saraceno on his first realized habitable environmental structure..his investigation into expanding the ways in which we experience our world is quite revealing. He fragments the environment into a fun house, encouraging us to investigate and discover, feel and explore, turning the view into a cubist masterpiece that you become a part of.

visit cloudcity until November 4, 2012. Read about Cloud City here.