/ V-ion /
V-ion is a fictional energy company established in the early 20th century as an alternative to Nichola Tesla’s and Thomas Edison’s models of electricity generation and distribution.
The project's starting point is real patent documents from early 20th century that looked at energy generation from ionised particles in the atmosphere. The same process responsible for lightning.
The designs in the film were the result of historical aesthetics and scientific research. The aim was to make the narrative loyal to existing technical hurdles and popular aesthetics of the time.
With advancements in aerospace engineering, the balloons could be sent to space to take advantage of natural ionisation of the atmosphere as a result UV radiation coming from the sun. This process allows constant and limitless electricity harvesting.
For being essentially airborne, this mode of electricity production and distribution wouldn't require the same infrastructural organisation as seen in established and widely used modes of production. As a result, the story hints to how this would alter the way society is organised and leaves to the view the task to imagine the relations it would emerge from this world that almost happened (but didn't).
Year: 2013