The Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno is bringing his own brand of environmentally friendly art to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, the high-powered annual meeting attended by around 3,000 heads of government, business leaders, scientists and economists. Since 2003, Saraceno has focused on fossil-fuel free flight, creating a series of floating, air-fuelled sculptures made of silver and transparent Mylar (test flights were conducted in Germany and Bolivia, among other locations). Saraceno dug deeper during a residency at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) in Massachusetts, teaming up with the meteorologist Lodovica Illari and the oceanographer Glenn Flierl in the MIT department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). The bigwigs in Davos will get to see the team’s latest findings this week. “The EAPS team has created an interactive simulation, a web interface showing the globe and the evolving wind patterns based on wind forecast data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” says a press statement. Participants can rotate and tilt the globe with a touchscreen and can create their own flight trajectories for the floating sculptures (perhaps Theresa May will take a liking to the airborne art).
