Category: Homepage

Claude Debussy – Nuages (Nocturne)

According to the French composer, Claude Debussy, “‘Nuages’ renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white.”

Suggested by Erin Weaver (Member 37,688)

The Naming Of Clouds – Kings College London

This summer Kings College London will be hosting a series of connected performances exploring clouds and Utopian daydreams entitled The Naming Of Clouds. Clouds workers will be mysteriously creating and undoing patterns on the riverside terrace during the day for visitors to interact with. The next performances are on 6th August and 3rd September when spectators will be able to enter a Utopian daydream among the clouds.

The Naming Of Cloud is part of Kings College’s Paths To Utopia, a collection of new art works resulting from collaborations between artists, performers, architects, technologists and King’s College London academics to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s inspirational book Utopia. It was co-written and co-devised by Penny Newell and Philip Stainier.

To book tickets and for more information, please visit the the Kings College Website

The Naming Of Clouds - Paths To Utopia - Kings College London, Somerset House

The Naming Of Clouds – Paths To Utopia – Kings College London, Somerset House

Venn Diagram of the Big Ten

Margaret Webster recently joined the Society after reading an article in the New York Times. She then created this Venn diagram to help her learn the big ten clouds and we love it!

She says she is seeking “to persuade all who’ll listen of the wonder and beauty of clouds,” although the patience of some of her family members may be growing a little thin! As a retired psychotherapist, she told us she completely agrees with our statement that appreciating clouds is cheaper than a psychiatrist!

Cloudspotting for Beginners talk in Somerset, UK

In this entertaining and enlightening talk, Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney gives a tour of the sky, showing how to distinguish the many different cloud formations, from the common Cumulus to the rare and fleeting Kelvin-Helmholtz cloud. Gavin argues that clouds are the most evocative and poetic aspect of nature – and that cloudspotting might just be the perfect antidote to the pressures of modern life.

Date: Friday 8 July 2016
Time: 7.30pm–9.30pm
Venue: The Parish Rooms, Market Square Somerton, Somerset TA11 7NB, UK
Ticket Price: £10.69 – £11.74

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Announcing a Once-in-a-Lifetime CAS Holiday

We are very excited to launch the first Cloud Appreciation Society holiday, which will be taking place at the end of February 2017. The Society will be travelling to the beautiful wilderness of Canada’s Norther Territories to what we consider to be the best destination in the world for watching Nature’s ultimate sky spectacle: the Northern Lights.

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Aerotow above the clouds

Mike Rubin (member 329) recently sent us this edited video with soundtrack of an epic glider flight on 29th December 2015. It features a timelapse of an aerotow above the cloud, selfie stick action above the clouds, and cockpit footage as he flew over, around, through and under the clouds before a shower rained him out of the sky. He says it was his best winter flight ever!

Kevin Van Aelst

Rebekah Westphal, member number 41051, told us about “Common Clouds” by Kevin Van Aelst. We love this interpretation of cloud identification in coffee and thank Kevin for contributing his piece. You can learn more about him on his website here.

Alfred Stieglitz: Songs and the Sky

“Songs and the Sky” is an exhibition of art and music currently showing at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York until 18th June 2016.

The exhibition title derives from Alfred Stieglitz’s historic series, Songs of the Sky, the artist’s original title for the Equivalents (1925-1937). Similar to notes in a musical score, these images of cloud patterns form an abstract, universal visual language equivalent to the artist’s inner state, emotion, and ideas. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to view such a large collection of Equivalents.

Please visit the Bruce Silverstein Gallery for more information

New York Times Magazine Feature

The New York Times Magazine recently published an informative – and at times, moving – feature by Jon Mooallem about the Cloud Appreciation Society. Read the online version to discover how the Society came about and to learn of our efforts to have a new type of cloud accepted by the World Meteorological Organisation. Bear in mind, however, that the story ends in tears…

Cloudspotting / Light & Dark

Cloudspotter, Hong Hu recently began a side project called “Cloudspotting” where he will be capturing time-lapse videos of clouds. Here is the first of three he has shared with us entitled “Light & Dark”.

Clouds…Temporarily Visible – An Exhibition

The University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum is currently running an exhibition all about clouds. It’s called “Clouds…Temporarily Visible.” This image is from an installation that’s part of that exhibit. The cloud is composed of lightbulbs varying in size and opacity. Visitors can stroll under the cloud and pull the strings to change the luminosity of the cloud.

The exhibition runs until Sunday, 22nd May, and you can see more about it on the Weisman Art Museum website.

Arizona Monsoon, 2015

Cloud Appreciation Society Member 1,095, Davo Laninga has made a wonderful time-lapse film capturing the drama and power of the monsoon season over Arizona, US. Filmed over 3 months, 4,500 miles and about 50,000 photos captured between 2 cameras, it was clearly a huge undertaking and we applaud him for it!

Our New Website Design

We have given the Cloud Appreciation Society website a new layout and design, and are now in testing phase. There will be quite a few bugs, which we will be sorting out over the coming days. We would love to hear in the comments below if you’ve come across anything that seems broken. It will probably take you a little while to get used to where things are now, but we hope the development will be an improvement on the previous design. We hope also that it paves the way for the site to work better on mobile devices.

There is plenty more to do on the Photo Gallery. You can currently filter for cloud types by clicking the menu icon in the top right to reveal the cloud-type filter terms, but the gallery search functionality is still not in place.

Do let us know what you think of the new, cleaner look!