In 2015, Project Nimbus achieved a world first with the projection of moving images onto clouds from aircraft. Originally inspired as a response to a non-lethal US military weapon and the inevitable seduction of this process by commercial advertising, the initial focus was to develop and share methodology to catalyse social change underpinned by aims to open source the blueprints of a cloud projector.
This became 4 years of cross-disciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists and makers to create the Laser Zoopraxiscope mk6, a redesign of the first photographic projector by Edweard Muybridge from 1887.
The genesis of art science collaboration arose from the common ancestor of Muybridge, developed further through collaboration with the makers; aviators, technologists, early cinema specialists and cultural theorists.Â
Beyond the spectacle, nimbus encapsulates the spirit of innovation, where genuine collaboration and the public question their relationship to role of the image and data in society.