Cloud Studies

Mobilised by state and corporate powers, toxic clouds colonise the air we breathe across different scales and durations. Repressive regimes use tear gas to clear democratic protests from urban roundabouts. Carcinogenic plumes of petrochemical emissions smother racialised communities. Airborne chemicals such as chlorine, white phosphorous, and herbicides, are weaponised to displace and terrorise. Forest arson in the tropics creates continental-scale meteorological conditions, forcing millions to breathe toxic air.

It is a basic principle of forensics that, between solid objects, “every contact leaves a trace”. By contrast, clouds are the epitome of transformation, their dynamics are governed by nonlinear, multi-causal logics. This condition was apparent throughout the history of painting, when clouds, moving faster than the painter’s brush could capture them, needed to be imagined rather than described.

Clouds are always double. Seen from the outside they are measurable objects, seen from within they are experiential conditions of optical blur and atmospheric obscurity. Today’s clouds are both environmental and political. Their toxic fog is easily surrounded by lethal doubt. When ‘post-truth’ and denialism obscure acts of violence and compound the harm, we, the inhabitants of toxic clouds, must find new ways of resistance.