The Cyanometer is a monument to the blueness of the sky. It is inspired by the original cyanometer invented by the Swiss physicist and Alpine explorer Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in 1789. His cyanometer – a blue color wheel, forms the core of the monument, gently directing our gaze back to the sky. The Cyanometer is both a monument and open-source software that periodically collects images of the sky on a website, where it identifies the adequate shade of blue on de Saussure’s color wheel. Together with air quality data of Geneva, Ljubljana, Wroclaw and Grenoble, the website is creating a special kind of online archive that is measuring and documenting the changes to our environment. In a cloud-based world, the only clouds that really matter are the ones we see in the sky.
The festival took place in several locations and throughout the city of Grenoble and nearby areas.
EXPERIMENTA, the Biennale, took place from 4 February to 1 March 2025 throughout the Grenoble conurbation and the Grésivaudan and Voironnais areas. For its 12th edition, l’Hexagone has joined forces with more than thirty partners to offer a diverse range of programmes on the theme of water over four weeks. There were exhibitions, installations, performances, a conference and a professional day.
In keeping with the spirit of Hexagone’s national exhibition, EXPERIMENTA, the Biennale showcased the rich cross-fertilisation of art and science, with a particular focus on themes at the intersection of social and environmental issues. EXPERIMENTA interweaves thematic paths throughout its content, reflecting the main issues of its time and place.
On the occasion of the centenary of the International White Coal Exhibition, and in response to the great tensions crystallising over the growing scarcity of this precious element, the 12th edition of the Biennale will put water in the spotlight. Alongside Newton and his fundamental principle of interaction, EXPERIMENTA has also focused on the footprint: the footprint of the individual or the collective on the environment, the carbon footprint and related ecological issues.
