highlike

Gerard O’Neill

O’Neill cylinder

O’Neill was inspired by the papers written by his students. He began to work out the details of a program to build self-supporting space habitats in free space.Among the details was how to provide the inhabitants of a space colony with an Earth-like environment. His students had designed giant pressurized structures, spun up to approximate Earth gravity by centrifugal force . With the population of the colony living on the inner surface of a sphere or cylinder, these structures resembled “inside-out planets”. He found that pairing counter-rotating cylinders would eliminate the need to spin them using rockets.This configuration has since been known as the O’Neill cylinder.

matthew bird

parallaxis
In a new moving-image work by Melbourne-based artist and architect Matthew Bird, two bodies move across the land, working with large cylindrical instruments. We witness them map and survey a terrain analogous to universal physical and psychological locations, each revolution marking a paradoxical attempt to pin an earthly position through perpetual movement. Playing on the human need to understand our relationship to the people and places around us, Parallaxis considers the potential for architectural processes and measurements to act as a foundation for structures of understanding.

SCANLAB

FRAMERATE
Created from thousands of daily 3D time-lapse scans of British landscapes, the work observes change on a scale impossible to see with the lens of traditional cameras. This is not just an artwork. The data collected and presented by FRAMERATE is ground-breaking scientific research, containing empirical, measurable facts. We glimpse a future perpetually documented by the eyes of a billion autonomous vehicles and personal devices, creating high fidelity spatial records of the earth.

gordon matta clark

Anarchitecture

splitting house

“Of the many shows at the fabled 112 Greene Street gallery—an artistic epicenter of New York’s downtown scene in the 1970s—the Anarchitecture group show of March 1974 has been the subject of the most enduring discussion, despite a complete lack of documentation about it. Anarchitecture has become a foundational myth, but one that remains to be properly understood. Stemming from a series of meetings organized by Gordon Matta-Clark and reflecting his long-standing interest in architecture, the Anarchitecture exhibition was conceived as an anonymous group statement in photographs about the intersection of art and building. But did it actually happen? It exists only through oblique archival traces and the memories of the participants. Cutting Matta-Clark investigates the Anarchitecture group as a kind of collective research seminar, through extensive interviews with the protagonists and a dossier of all the available evidence. The dossier includes a collection of Matta-Clark’s aphoristic “art cards,” the 96 photographs that were produced by the various participants for possible inclusion in the exhibition, and images from a recently unearthed video of Matta-Clark’s now famous bus trip to see Splitting in Englewood, New Jersey.” Mark Wigley

Studio Roosegaarde

Grow
Daan Roosegaarde’s latest artwork GROW is an homage to the beauty of agriculture. In the world film premiere GROW appears as a luminous dreamscape of red and blue waves of light over an enormous field. GROW is inspired by scientific light recipes which improve plants’ growth and resilience. Most of the time we hardly notice the huge areas of the Earth which are literally feeding us. GROW highlights the importance of innovation in the agriculture system: How can cutting-edge light design help plants to grow more sustainably? How can we make the farmer the hero?

BILL VIOLA

Martelaren
Martelaren (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) bestaat uit vier plasmaschermen, elk met een enkele figuur die geleidelijk wordt overweldigd door de aanval van een natuurlijke kracht. De ervaringen van de vier individuen worden samen georkestreerd tot een samenhangend geheel. Het overheersende thema is martelaarschap voor diepgewortelde overtuigingen, waarbij het fysieke lijden van het lichaam op dramatische wijze duidelijk wordt gemaakt door de kardinale elementen.

CLEMENT VALLA

Открытки из google earth
Валла утверждал, что собрал серию из 60 «сюрреалистических» изображений или, по крайней мере, которые производят такое впечатление, в течение длительного периода «игры» в Google Планета Земля. «Эти изображения являются своего рода зеркалами для забавного дома. странные иллюзии и отражения реального. «Несмотря на сильные искажения, которые легко напоминают сюрреалистическую картину, изображения работы не имеют никаких манипуляций с такими инструментами, как, например, Photoshop». Изображения представляют собой скриншоты Земли с базовыми настройками цвета » , «Это построение трехмерных карт на двухмерной основе, создающее эти невероятные и непреднамеренные искажения».

Studio Stallinga

Heimweh
‘Heimweh’ displays the breaking of waves on a sandy beach fragmented across 12 screens. The waves and their sound move gradually towards the feet of the spectator. At one point the waves turn into a green haze. ‘Heimweh’ started as a reflection on earthly life by considering what most embodies being on earth. When traveling to Mars, for instance, the major missing element would be the sea. As the waves turn green, they deform, similar to memories that get blurred over time. When the green finally subsides, the clear sky and sea emerge again with a sense of relief.

Iris van Herpen

Earthrise
Поскольку наша планета находится на переднем крае глобальной повестки дня более чем когда-либо прежде, «Восход Земли» исследует великолепие этого голубого тела, которое мы называем своим домом, кружась к объединенному сознанию, чтобы сохранить величие вращающейся сферы, по которой мы движемся. Параллельно со стремлением Ван Херпена к взаимосвязанному подходу к моде, коллекция 19 look рассказывает о круговых процессах, которые приводят к изменениям в нашем разумном мире, переплетая симбиотическую нить между кустарным пошивом и органическим мастерством, происходящим из восприятия нашего мира как одного живого и дышащий организм.

Iris van Herpen

Earthrise
With our planet positioned at the forefront of the global agenda more than ever before, ‘Earthrise’ explores the splendour of this blue body we call home by circling towards the amalgamated awareness to maintain the grandeur of the turning sphere we traverse along. In parallel to Van Herpen’s drive towards an interconnected approach to fashion, the 19 look collection narrates the circular processes that usher change in our sentient world by weaving a symbiotic thread between artisanal tailoring and organic craftsmanship, derived from the perception of our world as one living and breathing organism.

Refik Anadol

Machine Memoirs
Es una exploración de estructuras celestes a través de la mente de una máquina. Esta instalación inmersiva tiene como objetivo combinar exploraciones pasadas y soñar con lo que puede existir más allá de nuestro alcance. Usando inteligencia artificial para narrar lo “desconocido” y una red neuronal generativa entrenada en imágenes de la Tierra, la Luna, Marte y la Galaxia, tomadas de observaciones de la ISS, Chandra, Kepler, Voyager y Hubble, esta instalación imagina un universo alternativo, quizás aportando más textura a nuestra propia tela.
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Is an exploration of celestial structures through the mind of a machine. This immersive installation aims to combine past explorations and dream of what may exist just beyond our reach. Using machine intelligence to narrate the “unknown,” and a generative neural network trained on images of the Earth, Moon, Mars and the Galaxy, taken from ISS, Chandra, Kepler, Voyager, and Hubble observations, this installation imagines an alternate universe, perhaps providing further texture to the fabric of our own.

Riccardo Torresi, Maxime Lethelier, Asako Fujimoto

Satellarium II
Sun Outage is a degradation or temporary interruption of satellite signal caused by solar radiation. In these moments satellites occur to be in between the Sun and the Earth, producing with their shadows an invisible eclipse. Satellarium II shows these astronomical events through a variation of visuals and sounds in the room in which it is exhibited. The installation consists of a set up of multi channel surround speakers and graphics projected on a disk above the viewers, representing the fragment of the visible sky from the location of the artwork. Visuals and sounds are based on real time tracking of the satellites position and magnitude (brightness of a satellite as it appears in the night sky from Earth). The gradient on the background of the projection represents the sun and it is related to its real-time position in the sky.

Carla Gannis

Garden of Emoji Delights
Earth
FILE SAO PAULO 2015
Los emoticonos pueden ser algo más que una forma de animar tus conversaciones digitales, sobre todo para la artista de nuevos medios Carla Gannis. Con El jardín de las delicias de los emoticonos [The Garden of Emoji Delights en inglés] Gannis reconstruye el famoso tríptico de El Bosco adaptándolo a la era digital, experimentando con nuevos modos de redefinir la identidad y sus formas de representación, tanto virtuales como físicas.

clement valla

Valla claimed to have collected a series of 60 “surrealistic” images, or that, at least, give that impression, during a long period “playing” in Google Earth.“The images are a kind of mirrors for a fun house.They are strange illusions and reflections of the real ”Despite the strong distortions, which easily resemble a surrealist painting, the images of the work do not have any manipulation of tools like Photoshop, for example.”The images are screenshots of Earth with basic color adjustments”, “This is a construction of 3D maps on two-dimensional bases, creating these fabulous and unintended distortions”.

daan roosegaarde

waterlicht

Dubbed “the northern light of the Netherlands” by Studio Roosegaarde, the Waterlicht installation is designed to create the impression of a “virtual flood”.The waving lines of light spread across 1.6 hectares bear a resemblance to the northern lights – the natural phenomenon created when charged particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere – when viewed from underneath.

studio smack

PARADISE – A contemporary interpretation of The Garden of Earthly Delights

Lo Studio Smack, meglio conosciuto per il video musicale Witch Doctor di De Staat, ha rilasciato una nuova animazione: un’interpretazione contemporanea di uno dei dipinti più famosi del primo maestro olandese Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nel loro ultimo lavoro, il gruppo ha ripulito il paesaggio originale del pannello centrale del dipinto di Bosch e lo ha ricostruito in un’allucinante animazione 4K. Le creature che popolano questo parco giochi al coperto incarnano gli eccessi e i desideri della civiltà occidentale del XXI secolo. Consumismo, egoismo, evasione, richiamo dell’erotismo, vanità e decadenza. Tutti i personaggi sono metafore per la nostra società in cui i solitari sciamano nel loro mondo dei sogni digitale. Sono riflessi simbolici dell’ego e dell’immaginazione delle persone come si vedono, a differenza della versione di Bosch, in cui tutti gli individui sembrano più o meno uguali. Da un Hello Kitty arrapato a un serpente del pene che caccia alla coca Da uno spybot incarnato a polli fritti senza testa. Questi personaggi, una volta figure di sogno dipinte con precisione, sono ora modelli 3D creati digitalmente. A tutti loro è stato dato il proprio ciclo di animazione per vagare nel paesaggio. Inserendoli tutti insieme in questo affresco sintetico, il quadro non è mai lo stesso. Ciò che l’animazione e il trittico di Bosch hanno in comune è che difficilmente riuscirai a sopportare tutto, puoi guardarlo per ore. “Paradise” è stato commissionato dal Museo MOTI nei Paesi Bassi per la mostra New Delights, che fa parte del 500 ° anniversario di Hieronymus Bosch. Una gigantesca installazione video di quest’opera è esposta nel Museo fino al 31 dicembre 2016.

AES+F

The Feast of Trimalchio: Arrival of Golden Boat

Del Satyricon di Petronio, spiritoso e lirico malinconico dell’epoca dell’imperatore Nerone, ci pervenne quasi intatto solo il capitolo dedicato alla cena di Trimalcione. La fantasia di Petronio fece del nome di Trimalcione il simbolo della ricezza e del lusso, del vizio della gola e della lussuria in barba alla fugacità della vita umana.
Abbiamo cercato di presentare qualcosa di simile nelle realta` del Terzo Millennio. Così, abbiamo visto Trimalchione, ex servo, liberto, nuovo ricco che dà conviti di molti giorni nel suo palazzo, invece che una persona, come un’immagine generalizzata di un hotel di lusso, una sorta di paradiso terrestre, il soggiorno in cui è prepagato.
Gli ospiti dell’hotel – i ‘padroni’, esponenti del “miliardo dorato”, cercano di dedicare parte del loro tempo, in qualsiasi stagione, al soggiorno presso Trimalcione odierno che ha arredato il proprio palazzo – hotel con il massimo esoticismo e lusso. L’architettura del Palazzo Hotel rappresenta un’assurda sintesi della spiaggia tropicale con la stazione sciistica. I ‘padroni’ indossano abiti bianchi che sembrano, da una parte, l’uniforme dei giusti dell’Eden temporaneo, dall’altra, la tradizionale uniforme coloniale, e, al contempo, una collezione estiva alla moda. I ‘padroni’ impersonano tutte le caratteristiche dell’umanità: ci sono, tra di loro, personaggi dai bambini ai vecchioni, hanno certi segni psicologici e sociali: un pofessore è dissimile da un broker, una donna di mondo da una intellettuale. I ‘servi’ di Trimalcione, giovani e carini esponenti di vari continenti (asiatici, africani, latinoamericani), il personale dell’industria alberghiera, dalle cameriere ai cuochi, ai giardinieri, alle guardie e ai massaggiatori. Sono tutti giovani e belli e indossano uniformi tradizionali di vario colore a seconda dell’etnia. Sono una specie di ‘angeli’ “di colore” del paradiso al quale i ‘padroni’ possono accedere per un certo tempo.

 

THOMSON AND CRAIGHEAD

톰슨 & 크레이그 헤드
Belief
Belief is made from information found entirely on the worldwide web. In fifteen minutes, this two-screen installation presents a series of fragmented broadcasts about belief, all sourced from the video sharing community YouTube. A compass floor projection interacts with the montage showing where each clip originated in relation to the geographical location of the artwork. With a little help from Google Earth viewers are placed at the centre point of this cinematic data visualisation.

Christian Babski, Stéphane Carion, Christophe Guignar & Patrick Keller

Satellite Daylight
Satellite Daylight is an interactive light installation formed by a trapeze of 24 high-voltage neon tubes tapering upwards, created by fabric | ch – a studio for architecture, interaction and research dedicated to investigating contemporary space based in Lausanne. The installation is connected to data collected in real time from online weather stations and meteorological satellite maps, which therefore translate actual global light conditions picked up by satellites orbiting the earth at the latitude of Basel into an endless loop of perceivable electrical intensity.

Keiken + George Jasper Stone

Feel My Metaverse
Feel My Metaverse is Keiken’s first venture in creating a cinematic film, using game engines to build a fictional future, wanting to create stories that viewers can collectively believe in. “I normally make CGI animation from Cinema 4D, often taking days and weeks just to produce short sequences or footage. Whereas working with game engines, we could generate landscapes or worlds that we can continually build onto collectively to produce larger scale works”. The film, set in a future when climate crisis has rendered Earth inhabitable, explores the daily lives of three characters and their experiences in the multiple realities – Pome Sector (a corporate wellness world), 068 (a roleplaying VR world), and Base Reality, or what we currently know as earth. The characters navigate the challenging landscape in the world’s unforgiving points system. Keiken’s goals of unlearning norms of the current world is included in one of these realities.

Fuse

Ljós
Ljós (Icelandic for ‘light’) has been conceived in continuity with the research carried out by fuse* in the field of digital and performative arts, which explores the deep connection between light, space, sound and movement. In Ljós, the performer is the means that allows the viewer to access a surreal and dreamlike space, a dimension with no gravity nor time, made by sounds and images reacting and interacting in real time. A shape-changing universe, which evolves from amniotic fluid in the beginning – protecting and supporting the performer – to the setting for violent explosions and transformations later – leading her to a direct contact with ground and Earth.

Moment Factory

Animistic Imagery
The exhibit introduces visitors to Duffy, the AI Artist, with an invitation to collaborate inside her Symbiotic Studio. This immersive space, made possible through projection mapping and interactive technology, invites guests to become the AI’s muse. As Duffy captures movements generated by visitors through real-time tracking, she draws links and connections, consulting a vast collection of colors and archetypal images of life on Earth. The result is an infinite series of surprising works of art—an artificial interpretation of humanity and the natural world.

Michael Najjar

Terraforming
The video work “terraforming” focusses on the transformation of a natural environment through energy input. The underpinning idea is that of three phase system change. This begins with the stage of equilibrium where a system is in a certain balance and not changing at all. In the next stage an evolving system enters a state of motion and change where it moves away from equilibrium. The third and final stage is the phase of transformation in which the original system becomes something else. The key element in this transformation process is the sun. This process is called terraforming, whereby a hostile environment, i.e. a planet that is too cold, too hot, or has an unbreathable atmosphere, can be altered to make it suitable for human life. Such a process is not merely a futuristic scenario but represents exactly what is happening on Earth at this moment as the process of atmospheric change brought about by increasing CO2 emissions heats up our planet and speeds up the process of climate change.
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Nicole L’Huillier and Sands Fish

Telemetron
Nicole L’Huillier and Sands Fish decided to explore how design and creativity might evolve as we begin to do more than merely survive in space. The Telemetron is a unique musical instrument that takes advantage of the poetics of zero gravity, and opens a new field of musical creativity. The project attempts to expand expression beyond the limits of Earth-based instruments and performers. Leveraging sensors, data transmission and capture (for performance after flight), as well as their experience as composers and performers, Sands and Nicole explore a new body language for music.

Charles Lindsay

CARBON
CARBON merges the aesthetics of space exploration and scientific imaging with the interpretation of abstract symbols. I’m interested in extremophiles, the origins of life on earth, and what forms sentience might assume elsewhere in the universe. Would we recognize it hovering in front of us? What began with a camera-less method I discovered while experimenting with photograms, and drawing, has grown into immersive environments including large stills, video, multi-point sound and inter-active sculptures.

Charlie Behrens

Algorithmic Architecture
This short film is intended to encourage a creative audience to seek out Kevin Slavin’s talk Those Algorithms Which Govern Our Lives. It employs an effect which takes place in Google Earth when its 3D street photography and 2D satellite imagery don’t register correctly. This glitch is applied as a metaphor for the way that our 21st century supercities are physically changing to suit the needs of computer algorithms rather than human employees.

John Wong

RuShi
如是 (RuShi) means “as is”. Nothing more or less, but the true colors. It’s a piece of contemplative immersive installation art, where in using the ancient Chinese metaphysic algorithm, “八字” (BaZi). Yet take out all the extra cultural signs & materialistic interpretations, remain only the “Basic”, i.e. the 5 elements (gold/ wood/ water/ fire/ earth). Participants type in their date & time of birth, the fortune-telling algorithm turns out showing only the unique ones’ flow of colors. We can see no prediction of life from this machine, but only time & changes.

Lawrence Malstaf

FILE SAO PAULO 2017
OVERVIEW

Astronauts who were able to observe planet Earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where ‘my molecules are yours’ and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion.
The Overview-installation consists of a motorized video screen that can slowly pan, tilt and lift. The screen is 3m x 4m wide and has LED light on the backside. An abstracted globe is projected on the front.

Guillaume Marmin

TIMÉE
In roughly 360BC, Plato shared his dialogue Timaeus, in which he imagined the universe as a geocentric system, including a concept called Music of the Spheres where each planet had its own sonic tone based on its unique orbital revolution. The entire system was divided into an octave, a fifth, a fourth, and tone, and as all the planets revolved around the Earth, the solar system would comprise a perfect musical score.

bill viola

比尔•维奥拉
빌 비올라
ביל ויולה
ビル·ヴィオラ
БИЛЛ ВИОЛА
martyrs (earth, air, fire, water)

“As the work opens, four individuals are shown in stasis, a pause from their suffering. Gradually there is movement in each scene as an element of nature begins to disturb their stillness. Flames rain down, winds begin to lash, water cascades, and earth flies up. As the elements rage, each martyr’s resolve remains unchanged. In their most violent assault, the elements represent the darkest hour of the martyr’s passage through death into the light.”

Nelo Akamatsu

Chijikinkutsu
“Chijikinkutsu” is a coinage, specially created for the title of this work by mingling two Japanese words: “Chijiki” and “Suikinkutsu”.”Chijiki” means geomagnetism: terrestrial magnetic properties that cannot be sensed by the human body but that exists everywhere on earth. Since long before the Age of Discovery, people have traveled with navigation using compasses employing geomagnetism. In recent years, various devises that utilize geomagnetism have even been incorporated into smartphones[…] “Suikinkutsu” is a sound installation for a Japanese traditional garden, invented in the Edo period. The sounds of water drops falling into an earthenware pot buried under a stone wash basin resonate through hollow bamboo utensils. The concept of the work “Chijikinkutsu” does not derive from experimentalism of science and technology on which media arts rely, nor from architectural theory of western music upon which some sound arts lay their foundation. While utilizing the action of geomagnetism normally treated as a subject of science, this sound installation expands the subtle sounds of “Suikinkutsu” in the context of Japanese perspective on Nature.

Donald Davis

Internal view of the O’Neill cylinder
“One of my earliest Space Colony paintings was based on the giant ‘Model 3’ cylindrical habitats envisioned by Gerard O’Neill. I imagined the clouds forming at an ‘altitude‘ around the rotation axis. At this time the scene is bathed in the ruddy light of all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth at that moment as the colony briefly enters the Earths shadow, out at the L5 Lagrangian point where stable locations are easily maintained. Oil on canvas panel disposition unknown. “

Sarah Sze

Shorter than the Day
The New York-based artist captures the sky as it changes from cerulean blue morning to a colorful sunset to the many shades of night through nearly 1,000 photographs of the sky. Each printed image is fastened to the aluminum and steel with alligator clips and is revealed as viewers move around the massive work, just like the earth circles the sun to mark a day.

Roy Andersson

World of Glory
World of Glory is a 1991 Swedish short film written and directed by Roy Andersson. Its original Swedish title is Härlig är jorden, which means “Lovely is the Earth”, and is the Swedish title of the hymn “Fairest Lord Jesus”. The narrative portrays a man in white make-up who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world. The film was Andersson’s critical comeback to cinema, after many years in advertising

Kimchi and chips

Halo
99 robotic mirrors continuously move throughout the day to follow the sun like sunflowers. These mirrors, arrayed across two 5 meter tall towers and one 15 meter long track, each emit a beam of sunlight into a cloud of water mist. The beams are computationally aligned so that together they draw a bright circle in the air. Dependent entirely on the presence of the sun for its completion, the work explores the possibilities and limitations of technology to capture what is out of reach, to harness nature and bring the sun down to earth. Collaborating with the natural fluctuations in the climate, Halo appears only for moments when the wind, sun, water, and technology coincide, creating a form which exists between the material and immaterial.

Alex May and Anna Dumitriu

ArchaeaBot: A Post Climate Change, Post Singularity Life-form
“ArchaeaBot: A Post Singularity and Post Climate Change Life-form” takes the form of an underwater robotic installation that explores what ‘life’ might mean in a post singularity, post climate change  future. The project is based on new research about archaea (the oldest life forms on Earth) combined with the latest innovations in machine learning & artificial intelligence creating the ‘ultimate’ species for the end of the world as we know it.

Jennifer Steinkamp

EON
“I considered the first life forms on Earth and how we came to be as a way to refer to the Natural Sciences. I looked at fossil records of the first multi cellular organisms of the Ediacaran Period, 555 million years ago for inspiration. I was struck by the theory of symbiosis in evolution; our DNA ancestors are the resultant fusion of single cellular organisms and bacteria. The millions of bacteria in our bodies are our foremothers. EON is a speculative fiction, a depiction of early life forms underwater. The Universe was formed 13.7 billion years ago. The Earth is 4.543 billion years old. Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae were the first microbes to create oxygen on Earth via photosynthesis 3.5 billion years ago. First humans 200,000-300,000 years ago.” Jennifer Steinkamp

Karlheinz Stockhausen

SONNTAG aus LICHT

Sonntag aus Licht takes as its subject our solar system and the relationships of all the planets that orbit the sun. In this opera, the earth and life on it is represented as the result of the union of light and water. These two elements are presented in the first scene, and the rest of the opera celebrates the evolution of life, of plants, animals, humans, and above all this the planets, moons, and heavenly constellations. The opera has a pronounced ritualistic and meditative character, with very little that can be described as dramatic action.

Atsushi Koyama

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What exactly is METAMACHINE? The metaphor comes from the artistic path of Atsushi Koyama, one of the participating visual artists. While emphasising the aesthetic qualities of machines and mechanical drawings in oil paintings, Koyama merges the human body with mechanisms, creating a man-machine (similar to the notorious Tetsuo, but in a more sublimated way). As if to incorporate the beauty of the human body, Koyama’s mechanisms break away from their earthly nature. They take us to another reality, beyond utilitarian usage or function itself. Koyama’s machines act more like ‘mechanical’ (‘mechaaesthetical‘) keys to another dimension, existing outside of the physical reality and its laws.

 

ELIŠKA SKY

Eco Warriors

A Beginner’s Guide for Eco Warriors is inspired by the current dramatic changes in Earth’s ecosystem due to the human impact, the so-called age of Anthropocene. This short film represent, with certain level of exaggeration, tips and inspirations how to lower your ecological footprint and contribute to the slowing down of global warming and the protection of natural habitats. This short film then becomes a small guide for Eco Warriors and urges for reflection and reaction from each of us.

Fayçal Baghriche

Souvenir
Being self-lighted, at the same time that it rotates on its own axis, the object distorts that which it apparently seeks to represent. Therefore, the presence of an inner light, associated with the rapid movement produced by the globe’s motorization, is responsible for abstracting any border line. By fostering the internal luminosity of a planet, which is pure darkness, the work relegates the value of representation to a second level and gives rise to a set of ideas disconnected from the real. In this sense, Souvenir is a means of reconsidering in what way the demarcations that define the geopolitical scenario of this tiny globe are lost in the Earth’s infinite rotativity.

Quadrature

Positions of the Unknown
At the very beginning of space exploration the infrastructure to monitor the whole sky was not yet developed. So in order to find out whether foreign countries launched objects, the US government started to train citizens to observe and detect possible artificial satellites. Scattered over the allied world, these amateur scientists played a crucial part in keeping track of all men-made technology orbiting earth, until “Operation Moonwatch” was discontinued in 1975 […] “Positions of the Unknown” locates the current whereabouts of these mysterious objects by simply pointing at them as they revolve around Earth. Missing the legal proof, those unidentified artefacts remain entities of pure speculation, secret companions of us and our planet. Even so they have been sighted several times and their ubiquitous presence is therefore somehow validated, they linger in a state between existence and non-existence. Quadrature’s 52 small machines constantly follow their paths and serve as silent witnesses of the unknown.

MICHAEL BURTON

Astronomical Bodies

Astronomical Bodies is based on the research of Dr. Terence Kee of the University of Leeds. He proposes that that a reactive form of phosphorus arrived on the early Earth via meteorite impacts. His research found that phosphorus from space was more suitable for the chemical reactions to develop complex life. Astronomical Bodies reverses this process and tries to transform phosphorus harvested from the body — in the form of kidney stones and urine — into manmade meteorites. Rather than the traditional idea of transpermia addressed in a host of science fiction writings and films, Astronomical Bodies proposes that the galactic transferal of life-promoting chemicals is a natural process that we can facilitate.

Agnes Meyer-Brandis

Cloud Core Scanner

Her current installation IN THE TROPOSPHERE LAB provides insights into the material produced under conditions distant from earth. The exhibition tells of the formation of clouds and shows conditions and combinations of art and science during zero gravity. With the exhibition by Agnes Meyer-Brandis, the project space of the Ernst Schering Foundation once again presents a contemporary art project that stimulates interdisciplinary debate and builds bridges to scientific research. The lab as a gravimetric document of the “Cloud Core Scanner” experiment shows a world alternating between controlled and bound-less states – artistic research in search of the reality level of constructions of the matter that surrounds us.

David Bowen

The other side
This installation automatically creates a three-dimensional relief carving of the current cloud formations and ocean surface conditions on the opposite side of the earth from the location of the gallery space. Using satellite data from the Nasa Earth Observing Information System and the GPS coordinates of the gallery, the installation obtains a current image of an approximately six hundred square mile area on the opposite side of the earth from its location. Using custom software, the system converts this image into a relief model that is sent to an onsite CNC machine hanging upside down in the gallery space. The CNC machine carves the relief in pink foam with its upside-down orientation directly echoing the cloud and ocean topography on the opposite side of earth.

ingo gunther

exosphere

The Exosphere has a diameter of 12 m (39’4″), weighs 4.5 tons, and relates to the Earth at a scale of 1:1,000,000. Its blue LED display indicates the geographic location of Wolfsburg, local temperature and time (supplied by the Atomic clock). It is positioned where Wolfsburg would be on this globe, assuming that the bottom of the globe is North and the vertical red display represents the position of the international dateline.

Field of Globes is a permanent installation of ninety World Processor globes. These spheres are readymade acrylic globes altered by the artist to visualize data on a variety of topics. This data comes from myriad sources, including the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other organizations.

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