CHRISTOPH KELLER Christoph Keller, Introduction | Page 56

CLOUDBUSTER PROJECT, 2003 – 2011
In 1953, Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich began to experiment with the Cloudbuster, a device
he had created to influence the atmosphere, to make it rain or keep it from raining – and, according
to various reports of that time, with great success. The way the Cloudbuster functioned was based
on Reich’s theory of the human libido as a universal energy, inherent in living as well as organic mat-
ter, the radiation of which he called Orgone – a neologism composed of orgasm and organism.
In May–June 2003, Christoph Keller, while in New York as P.S.1 scholar, conducted the re-enact-
ments of Reich’s experiments with his own reconstruction of the Cloudbuster with the aim to create
rain – during that time New York experienced the heaviest rainfalls since the beginning of meteoro-
logical observation.
The Cloudbuster experiments were re-enacted in various exhibitions. Each time, the Cloudbuster
– placed on the building’s rooftop – could be remote-controlled from within the gallery space, and
filmed by a fisheye video camera. In the exhibition space, a satellite bowl hanging from the ceiling
reflected the live projection of the Cloudbuster and the sky above it.
Cloudbuster Project / Heaven and Sky, 2003/2008, Installation with satellite bowl, beamer projection, cloudbuster, video camera,
monitor, water pump, water, satellite diameter 310 cm (CK 146)
Exhibtion View: Observatorium, Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2008
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