Twin Cloud

Twin Cloud is a climate data-driven generative art project and a sustainable art initiative. Drawing data from environmental satellites, it generates climate identities for 300 cities worldwide. Its special edition also returns carbon to ground by linking digital art collection to on-chain carbon credits.

Twin Cloud is a climate-data driven generative art collection, originating from the artist's research on a series of extreme weather events. Utilizing atmospheric data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the artist examines the atmospheric composition during extreme weather events such as the Amazon forest fires, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Los Angeles smog incident. Through both a horizontal comparison across 300 cities worldwide and a vertical comparison spanning a decade, the work reveals stories of urban life and natural propagation.

In the eastern Ukrainian city, explosions in chemical plants during the war released massive amounts of orange-red smoke containing harmful substances such as carbon monoxide, ammonium nitrate, TNT, and nitrogen oxides. The burning buildings, petrochemical emissions, metal fragments, corpses, and carbonized plants have all contaminated the atmosphere of this agricultural nation. However, aerosols do not only signify destruction; they can also nurture life. Dust from Africa provides essential fertilizer to the phosphorus-deficient soils of the Amazon. Every year, the Sahara Desert releases 182 million tons of dust, with 28.8 million tons deposited in the Amazon basin, promoting plant growth.

Machine vision may perceive nature as a series of spectral information or pressure variations. Satellites determine cloud composition, height, and thickness by analyzing the visible and infrared light reflected by different particles within the clouds. Whether in classic Earth portraits, weather forecasts, or the digitally simulated wind in Harun Farocki's artworks, all are images reconstructed and organized by computers before being retouched by humans. From the classical era to the digital age, the depiction of wind and clouds may appear similar, but the methods of observation and cognition are vastly different. The clouds within computers have become our means of observing, analyzing, and recognizing nature.

"Twin Cloud Bitcoin" focuses on the impact of Bitcoin mining on the global climate. The work is based on Cambridge Blockchain Network Sustainability Index, depicting the carbon footprint fluctuations from the genesis block in 2009 to the present. It takes multiple data dimensions, including greenhouse gas emission, sources for mining power(coal or renewable energies), block heights, etc. Simultaneously, the artwork collaborates with Arkreen’s project GreenBTC.

Club, incorporating contributions from clean energy to offset the carbon emissions of the Bitcoin network. The collection of Twin Cloud digital artwork will automatically results in the collection of carbon certificates on-chain, therefore returning carbon to the ground.When we transform climate issues into financial ones, the work raises the question: How can we use such precise calculations and predictions by machines to invest in a different future?