Plastic Cloud Documentary

One day in March 2001, Andres Lõo, Kaarel Kurismaa, Martiini and Kiwa gathered in a former hospital on Endla Street in Tallinn. Over the next few hours, they set up an experimental performance in the hospital’s dining hall, utilising sound equipment, lighting and kinetic objects, projectors, turntables, effects blocks and various other gear. Thus, the sound art platform Metabor was born.

Soon after, DJ Masin and p0rt joined the group, and together the core of the collective organised several events over the following years. These gatherings primarily took place in abandoned or repurposed buildings and public spaces throughout Tallinn. The name Metabor represented not only the event series and the collective but also a distinct state of consciousness. In retrospect, the platform’s cross-generational and interdisciplinary nature is particularly noteworthy. Under the Metabor banner, creators from various fields and beyond traditional art boundaries came together, introducing sound as a new medium to Estonia’s contemporary art scene.

Plastic Cloud Documentary exhibited here was edited by Tõnis Jürgens from video footage shot by Kaarel Kurismaa. The film captures scenes from Metabor events at the Dvigatel factory, aboard the icebreaker Suur Tõll, and at the Maarjamäe memorial complex, alongside new shots filmed with the same camera. In this exhibition, the film represents the antithesis of modernist rationality: it emphasises a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down one, focusing on the immeasurable rather than the measurable. The core members have described these events as total environments, metaphysical boreal multimedia theatre nights, and machines designed to capture primordial sound. In the pursuit of primordiall sound, one cannot succeed or fail – it reverberates through everything and simultaneously through nothing. It appears that Metabor functions even in its absence; why else would its emblem feature a plane without wings?