Deep space call and response 2025

Deep Space Call and Response [2025] is a seven channel installation of my 2023 sound composition. The new mix was commissioned by Talbot Rice Gallery as part of interdisciplinary group exhibition Trading Zone 2025. The twelve and a half minute composition uses orbital data from 11 European Space Agency satellites to trigger and modulate sound samples based on recordings from my own domestic environment.

Scientific observation satellites allow us to extend our eyes and ears far into space; from those satellites that are in close-Earth-orbit; monitoring environmental changes like the melting of Arctic sea-ice; to others that are in long range orbits; performing stellar cartography; or peering back in time to observe the early universe.  European Space Agency missions rely on a global network of ground stations - with giant satellites dishes which shift position to track the satellites as the earth rotates. Deep Space Call and Response imagines what the call and response between these satellites and their supporting ground stations might sound like.

Deep Space Call and Response is on one level an optimistic hymn to what can be made possible through long-term thinking and international cooperation, and on anothera lament for the fragility of that cooperation - and for the uncertainty presented by the development of a commercially focussed space industry.

The work is installed in the gallery’s round room where a circular configuration of speakers emphasises the dynamic, three dimensional movement of orbiting satellites. The low lighting and seating in the space is an invitation for visitors to enjoy a focused listening experience. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a pamphlet of ekphrastic poetry by Maria Schiza in response to the ten exhibited works. Ekphrasis is the verbal or literary description of a work of art.