Smoke and noise

On the night of 31 January 2013, Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus carried out their latest installation, covering a central street in Madrid with a dense cloud of smoke, obscuring vision and the senses. The intervention took place as a series of spontaneous demonstrations happened in the city to protest against a recent political corruption scandal implicating head members of the Spanish government.

The light and sound installation featured small, homemade smoke bombs — which the collective remarks were "completely harmless" — installed under nine lampposts. When triggered, the smoke bombs totally obscured, for 25 minutes, one of Madrid's central streets, close to the Gran Via.

The resulting scene is compared by Luzinterruptus as "belonging to a post-conflict zone or of a church during the hours of mass", but was nonetheless poetic, as the illuminated smoke curled up in whimsical shapes, forming imperfect cones in space. Simultaneously, all the nearby fire alarms were activated, tinging for a long time in what the collective deems a contribution to the "general malaise that reigned on the streets at that time".

"The smoke carried through the air, causing the entire area to eventually be covered with a whitish layer that produced a feeling of heaviness and sadness," states the collective, "as well as being very strange because the smoke and the sound of the alarms were not accompanied either by fire or a burning smell."

Luzinterruptus: Smoke and noise
Duration of smoke diffusion: 2 minutes
Damages: none
Duration of installation: 25 minutes