Developments in nanotechnology and planetary-scale engineering point to new possibilities for us to conform the global environment to our needs. These advances combined with a dream to make clouds snow ice cream have inspired a series of experiments that look at ways to alter the composition of clouds to make new and delicious sensory experiences. Using ice-cream as a catalyst for interesting dialogue, the project’s focus is to welcome people into a mobile space that sits outside institutions, letting new audiences experience and imagine emerging scientific developments and their consequences.

“Imagine, at the very point where humanity begins to push the boundaries of sustainable existence under existing conditions, we develop the means to conform our global environment to our needs—inverse-evolution if you like. We discover that science and technology give us a lever large enough to shift the world, metaphorically speaking. We find that by controlling matter at the nanoscale, we can bend it to our will at the megascale. In short, geoengineering appears to be humanity’s right-of-passage to planetary maturity. But these abilities seem to far outstrip our understanding of their consequences. It almost seems that scientists are in danger of applying the hypothesis-driven science of the laboratory to the whole world, while forgetting that when the hypothesis fails, there aren’t too many options to go back and start again.”

Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor, Project of Emerging Nanotechnologies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars