The Ice Cloud | Le nuage de Givre

1700, Saint-Denis Rue, Ville-Marie, Montréal, Canada

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The Ice Cloud | Le nuage de Givre

1700, Saint-Denis Rue, Ville-Marie, Montréal, Canada

Firm

intégral jean beaudoin

Type

Cultural ›
Government + Health ›
Landscape + Planning › Public Park

YEAR

2011

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET

$100K - 500K

RECLAIMING PUBLIC SPACE IN WINTER THROUGH ART
INSTALLATIONS
The Ice Cloud | Le Nuage de Givre
temporary large scale art installation
place des festivals, quartier des spectacles, Montreal, Quebec.
from 15th of december 2011 to 2nd of February 2012
designed by Jean Beaudoin ( www.ijb.ca ) and
Erick Villeneuve ( www.novalux.com )
produced by Novalux ( www.novalux.com )

The Ice Cloud, named in french ‘’Nuage de Givre’’, is
a giant scale installation comprized of 100 000 water cells hovering over
Montreal’s main downtown plaza. The artwork of 35,000 square feet is morphing
to the weather, winds and, at night, visitors trigger light borealis will
traveling under the cloud.
The installation is part of an initiative by the
Partenariat du Quartier des spectacles, an organization uniting all major
cultural institutions of Downtown Montreal, to reclaim the public spaces of the
city in winter time, in order to make Montreal a through Nordic City. The idea
was initiated in 2009 by the installation Pixel field| Champ de pixels (1) and
as evolved into a national open competition ‘’Créer l’hiver| Creeate winter’’
that was won by Jean Beaudoin and Erick Villeneuve for their proposal ‘’ The
Ice Cloud | Le Nuage de Givre’’.
The cloud is made out of 100 000 water cels made
out of standard Cryopak cooling bags, hung on 4 giant nets. The installation
thus react to the weather temperature as it liquifies at +5Celsius and freezes
over at -5Celcius. The installation also react to the winds that are unveiled
in moving cels and shades in daytime, and expressed in light at night.
10 surveillance camera are feeding 18 video projectors
are generating lightborealis over the passerbys (2). The interactive lighting
underlines the presence of Montrealers and visitors on the Plaza. A livecam over
the site is both promoting the installation as well as enabling the visitor to
see in real time on iphones the impact of their presence on the site.(3)
The morphing nature of the installation, defined by
the context and its animation, is contributing to stenghten, and extend to
winter, the identity of Quartier des spectacles, downtown’s theater district,
and by extension Montreal’s unique mutating spaces that are created by the
internationaly known summer festivals.
(1) Champ de
pixels is presented on WAN :http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=13213
(2) video of an example of interactive light from plaza levelhttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150485999274271
(3) Live cam on official city websitehttp://www.quartierdesspectacles.com/en/nuage-de-givre-2/