The Poetry of Document

Berlin’s sole cloud factory is located in the east part of the city, on the banks of the river Spree. It’s not pretty. Though it produces steam, it looks more like a cement factory, only without the typical white dust covering the surroundings. I have been working for the company since the summer of 2006. My job is to document the output in its various stages of extension, transformation and migration. I use a digital camera. I cover large distances on foot or on my bicycle.

Time and again, I return to the same places and often stand there for long periods of time.

The job requires a lot of patience. They told me that right when they hired me. In the personnel office, there hung a poster with the slogan “Clouds for everyone!” and someone added with ballpoint “not only for tourists”. That sounded like GDR, but the company was founded in 1927 and has survived the reunification of Germany unscathed. The wall, they assured me, has never been a problem, due to the clouds’ “product specific facility of border-transcending movement.” My colleagues compared the “various governments our company has experienced” the to the wind which blows from one direction, then from another, sometimes harsh and sometimes less so, while the sky remains a constant given, one equal dome over war and peace. This may be true for the past but for the future, I’m not so sure.

We owe the founding of the Berlin cloud factory to a co-operation between the Office National Météreologique in Paris and the Metrologio-Magnetic Observatory in Potsdam, which is astounding for the Weimar Period. However, the factory has nothing to do with meteorology or geo-engineering. It neither prognosticates nor manipulates the weather nor, God forbid, the climate. “We are not rainmakers,” I once heard the executive secretary say on the phone, “our research has only one goal, to improve the quality of our product and service.” Accordingly, my task takes a somewhat different form than that of a normal scientific observation.

In order to see how a cloud develops on its way from the site of origin, it is usually more practical to scope it out from a fixed point of view than to chase it on its way through the city. To quote our textbook (dating from the company’s founding years): “As a matter of fact, the evolution of the state of the sky can be followed indefinitely at one station, while the evolution of a cloud, if, as is usual, it is a migrant, can only be observed during the relatively short time that it takes to cross the sky.”

This procedure makes more sense not only because our clouds continually change and move forward at the same time, but also because they often come up against other clouds, natural clouds so to speak (i. e. ones that are not made artificially and intentionally). Their behaviour in such situations is of the greatest interest to the company, in order to be able to design their products right from the start in such a way that they are most likely to act as they are supposed to when released.

Cloud scientists concentrate on the skies and ignore everything that’s below it. But we’re not allowed to do this. One has to be able to tell from the picture where we are. It does not suffice to note the name of a place under a cloudy rectangle. Even the owners of cameras with GPS that register the exact position in the EXIF data had to obey the rules. The biggest disappointment awaited fans of digital image processing. Completely out of bounds! We’re not even permitted to correct the colors or chose a better frame. No press agency could be more paranoid than our company.

I like my job and don’t think about it too much, but sometimes I do wonder at the great efforts they put into a few future historical images of their clouds. We are documenting a split second of something that has no fixed whereabouts, exists only in transient forms and consists of a little bit of white air. I mean, we are documenting – nothing. Shelley, in his poem “The Cloud”, said: “I change, but I cannot die.” Perhaps my bosses are afraid that their clouds or clouds in general could come to an end after all.

I recently spoke to to Manuel Patxot, the director of the archive, about this. He actually agreed with me and called “the terrible pathos of the meaningful act” that many field workers cultivate, “hard to endure”. It was true, he said, that clouds were nothing, but because of the physicality of the storage media, we forget that the digital data we gather are equally nothing, “dahinfahrend immerdar / flüchtig und wandelbar” (“passing intangible / flighty and changeable”). He saw no contradiction. Everything was in perfect harmony. And, he added, also in complete accordance to the goals and plans of the Cloud Commission, by the way. Or did he say Cosmic Commission? I don’t know. Strange company.

I never know who actually commissions the contracts, but production tends to be exaggerated for well-paying clients and in such cases I can guess who ordered the cloud splendor. Sometimes, a glance at the calendar also helps. For the wreath-laying ceremony on the occasion of the return of the anniversary of the building of the wall, the scenery should offer a certain level of drama, with a threat of rain, but none falling, as a metaphor for the Cold War. I don’t know whether or not the clouds are also used to signify the current political “climate”. In any case, some things are taboo. Dark clouds over the office of the federal chancellor? No way. For Angie, it’s always something light, buoyant, not too frisky.

It is quite difficult to get clouds to form rows and move in orderly formation. During my time here, the company has succeeded only once in programming them for a parade. The start was at Haupbahnhof, the central train station. Unfortunately the patients and personnel at the Charité hospital were not able to see the amusing spectacle, as they had covered the building with black cloth like a coffin.

When clouds appear in a circular arrangement, which is rarely attempted due to the difficulty of creating thermals (wind out of several directions at the same time), this too has a symbolic meaning, but must not be confounded with the “Blue Spot”, a hole in an otherwise closed cloud layer, generally a sign of hope, though in my experience it is usually an alarm signal for approaching professional difficulties. Why does security come by so often? Are so many parts of the sky really private property? Maybe the old joke is true, stating that in England, everything which is not explicitly forbidden is allowed, in France, everything which is explicitly forbidden is allowed and in Germany, everything which is not explicitly allowed is forbidden?

While the company offers all types of clouds (Cirrus, Stratus, Cumulus, Nimbus and mixed types), the bestseller is and remains the Cumulus. I can still recall a cloud of the type “Molly III” that made its way all alone through an empty blue sky and had almost reached the Tempodrom when I suddenly saw it jump onto a flat roof, where it rested a full ten minutes, hoping not to be seen. In the meantime, I went to the adjacent Anhalter Bahnhof and once again tested the eternal question of what is the minimum I require to make a site identifiable beyond confusion. While at it, I once again remarked one of the city’s curiosities: The constructor of small-scale models imitates reality. Berlin however frequently shows an ambition to imitate a model, with all its typical problems. The size ratios are incorrect (signs and billboards are much to big compared to the buildings), real building materials evolve to look like plastic and cardboard, objects that should hang or stand up straight are implausibly skewed in a most un-lifelike manner. One passes through a diorama with flaws that would bother any constructor of models, but do not bother the city planners.

I hope I’ve been able to answer some of the most important questions about the cloud factory. You might also want to hear an explanation how, after a day of steady cloudiness without the slightest promise of it clearing up, as it grows dusk, clouds disappear one after the other so that when night comes, everything has cleared away, as if not a cloud had ever dimmed the sky. The phenomenon is typical for Berlin and merely shows that we have been working – at the end of the day, everything is quickly cleaned up and tidied away, of course.