Clouding Green - Zero1 Biennial 2012 - Augmented Reality Art Greenpeace "How Clean is Your Cloud"

Commissioned in 2012 by the Zero1 Biennial in Silicon Valley, California,
and the Samek Gallery at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania.

The world’s computing power is moving into the Cloud – but where does the Cloud get its energy?

The artworks for “Clouding Green” are massive augmented reality clouds in colors ranging from sooty carbon black to brilliant renewable green. Each cloud refers to a major Silicon Valley cloud computing provider cited in the Greenpeace report “How Clean is Your Cloud,” with the color reflecting the percentage of renewable energy used to power each company's cloud servers.

For the 2013 Digital Art Weeks Singapore I created a "portable" version of the project consisting of 5 of these clouds floating above the ArtScience Museum in Singapore. Touching each cloud tells you the name of the company and its Clean Energy Index.

"Clouding Green" over the ARtScience Museum in Singapore
2013 Digital Art Weeks Singapore

"Clouding Green" originated as a site-specific artwork commissioned for the 2012 Zero1 Biennial exhibit "Seeking Silicon Valley." The award was granted by the Zero1 Biennial itself and the Samek Gallery at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania. For the exhibition, I permanently installed AR clouds over 8 corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley. Below are images of the works at 6 of the sites.

See below for viewing instructions and a list of all locations where you can see the artwork.
See the Manifest.AR blogpage for a list of all Manifest.AR projects at the Zero1 Biennial.

Install the Layar Reality Browser from your app store or http://www.layar.com/
Go to one of the locations below - they can also be found on the Manifest.AR Zero1 Biennial Googlemap
Start Layar, press the "Layers" button and search for "clouding green".
Select the layer to launch it. (After this, it will be in your "Recent" tab.)
Look up in the sky - it should be floating over the building!
(If it says "no content" please back out and relaunch, it might take a while for the Layar server to find you.)
Touching the cloud in the display of your smartphone when on site at one of these locations will also give you the numerical value of Greenpeace’s Clean Energy Index and a link to the full Greenpeace report itself.

Apple HQ
37.332108,-122.029702
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

Apple Store
37.785826,-122.406321
1 Stockton St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Facebook
37.485722,-122.148938
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025

Google Inc.
37.422577,-122.085026
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Hewlett-Packard
37.41161,-122.148412
1501 Page Mill Rd
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Oracle Corporation
37.531842,-122.263564
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA 94065

Salesforce
37.793974,-122.394757
The Landmark @ One Market, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA, 94105

Samek Art Gallery
Langone Center, Bucknell University
40.95677,-76.884545

Twitter Corporate Office Headquarters
37.776719, -122.416751
355 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Yahoo! Inc.
37.414789,-122.024708
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Zero1 Garage - HQ for the Zero1 Biennial
37.329272,-121.885879
439 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113

Zero1 Urban Screens
37.331641,-121.886744
Maxxium Management Building
300 Sth 1st Street
San Jose, CA 95113

Tamiko Thiel:

Clouding Green, Zero1 Biennial Commission