Poster of the Nuclear Bomb Explosion, Baker Test, Bikini, July 25, 1946, alluding to the exhibition "Under the Clouds: From Paranoia To The Digital Sublime" on display at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art from June 20 to September 20, 2015.

Since the second half of the 20th century, we have lived under the shadow of two clouds: the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb and now the “cloud” of information networks. How did the metaphor of postwar paranoia become the utopian metaphor for today's interconnected world?

Under the Clouds confronts the interrelated effects and affects of these two clouds in life and work, in leisure and in love, and in images, bodies and minds. If the mushroom cloud represented the potential annihilation of human civilization, the “cloud” is the diaphanous representation of the network-driven, information-saturated conditions in which we increasingly live. We are assailed by the effects and influences of the cloud; data overloads us with needs, demands and sensations.

The unique image of the cloud, invisible but floating above us, represents everything from the abstractions of the financial system to the increasingly mediated character of our social relationships, the role of algorithms, and the effects of liking and sharing. 

Photography: Getty Images