Cloud (un)limited: reflection on the nature/culture relation in Anthropocene

When environmentalism degenerates into a superficial slogan of the consumer era, the Cloud (Un)limited project employs artificial clouds installation to confront the cognitive roots of the ecological crisis: Amid collective declarations of ‘protecting nature’, are we defending a culturally constructed illusion or the long-lost noumenon of nature itself? This research first concisely examines generic definitions of culture and nature, then employs Bruno Latour’s concept of ‘Nature-Culture Hybrid’ as a theoretical lens to dismantle the anthropocentric myth and explore frameworks transcending the traditional nature-culture dualism. Subsequently, the discussion extends into the field of art. Through a spatial-temporal analysis of Chinese ink-wash landscape painting’s symbolic natural reconstruction systems, the geometric utopian configurations of 18th-century English landscape gardens, and the speculative experiment within the creator’s public art piece Cloud (Un)limited, it reveals how artistic practices forge nature into symbolic vessels for civilizational expression while exposing culture’s parasitic exploitation of nature. The study contends that in the Anthropocene context, so-called ‘nature’ is essentially a cognitive mirage filtered through cultural lenses. Environmental protection cloaked as self-preservation inadvertently unveils humanity’s culturally encoded violence against nature via technological mediation. Ultimately, Cloud (Un)limited leverages the ‘unnatural’ existence of artificial clouds – through the dialectical tension between their illusory nature (unlimited) and materiality (limited) – to compel viewers toward an existential confrontation: As host pristine nature perishes, how much longer can parasitic culture endure?