Constructing Clouds and Albedo
Nataly Nemkova
IM-A Studio is an artistic duo: Katya Bryskina and Nataly Nemkova. We design the future of living and look for a third entity between nature and technology. The studio's work incorporates cutting-edge technologies, bio-based material research and speculative narratives to poetically explore our possible futures through the medium of art.
We create systems and objects at the intersection between art, architecture and design through a diverse range of mediums, from spatial installations and landscapes to conceptual artefacts. The studio’s projects investigate the interconnectivity between the different layers of the Earth, from the micro to macro perspectives, on a microbial to planetary scale. Our studio aims to manifest nature through the symbiotic relationship between living and synthetic, circular design strategies and context-sensitive technologies to supplement existing ecosystems and overcome ecological crises.
We develop creative and design strategies for public institutions and companies and offer computational consultancy to help artists, architects, and collectives implement their ideas.
Collective learning, knowledge exchange and teaching are key values of IM-A Studio’s mission to reveal the uncanny beauty of art, architecture and design disciplines while developing new methodologies through research and experimentation. We provide lectures and workshops at world-renowned universities, as well as our own online course developed to help students and professionals improve the presentation qualities of their projects.
New Layer of the Earth: Constructing Clouds and Albedo is a series of speculative narratives on how human and nonhuman entities may together tackle climate change using geoengineering strategies that utilise Cloud Reflectiveness and Cloud Formation. The New Layer of the Earth, explores objects and systems using artificial and natural elements to supplement existing ecosystems and overcome ecological crises. By investigating geoengineering alternatives, it brings nature and context-sensible technologies together to help the ecosystem regenerate.
By investigating geoengineering alternatives, the project brings nature and context-sensible technologies together to help the ecosystem regenerate. This research explores scientific, design, ecological and speculative solutions that can help architects, designers and artists to participate in planet terraforming.
In recent years, the scientific community has put forward several geoengineering responses to global warming. By definition, Geoengineering aims to terraform Earth systems through interventions to atmospheric processes, the carbon cycle, or the hydrologic cycle. Modifying the physical environment creates transboundary effects in various natural methods that are hard to simulate and, most of the time, to predict. Implementation of large-scale solutions makes tracking what appears as a result even harder.
Geoengineering strategies are seemingly too vast for creatives to approach and participate in the discussion. A good portion of these processes is irreversible, just as the effects of extraction and carbon dioxide emissions are. Geoengineering is typically presented as a planetary-scale intervention, which produces a justified alarm. However, breaking the ideas into minor elements and shifting to land-based solutions can help designers and the public use their geoengineering principles locally. It is essential to design a vision not just from a technical point of view but also social and aesthetical.