Joining SETI as an artist-in-residence

The SETI Institute just announced their new cohort of artists-in-residents for 2016 and I couldn’t be happier to be joining this amazing organization for a long-term (up to 2 years!) stint.

This includes a crew of other amazing artists: Dario Robleto (Conceptual Artist, Houston), Rachel Sussman (Photographer, Artist, Writer, New York), George Bolster (Filmmaker, Artist, New York), Jen Bervin (Visual Artist, Writer, Brooklyn), David Neumann (Choreographer, New York). The SETI Air program is spearheaded by Charles Lindsay (artist) and Denise Markonish (curator at MASS MoCA). I first met Charles at ISEA 2012 in Albuquerque, New Mexico when we were on the same panel around space-related artwork.

So, what will I be working on?

Well, this follows on the heels of a number of artwork related to space such as Tweets in Space (in collaboration with Nathaniel Stern), Uncertain Location, Black Hole Series and Moon v Earth, which were meditations of metaphors of space and potential.

Roughly speaking, I will be researching, mapping and creating installations of asteroids, meteor and meteorite data and working with scientists such as Peter Jenniskens, who is an expert on meteorite showers. These will be physical data-visualizations — installation, sculptures, etc, which follow my interests in digital fabrication and code with projects such as Water Works.

What specifically fascinates me is the potential between outer space and the earth, is the metaphor of both danger and possibility from above. These range from numerous spiritual interpretations to practical ones such as the extinction of the human race to the possibility that organic material from other planets being carried to our solar system. Despite appearances to the contrary Earth is not only a fragile ecosystem but also once that could easily be transformed from outside.

And already I have begun mapping some meteor showers with my custom 3D software, working with in collaboration with Dr. Jenniskens and a dataset of ~230,000 meteors over Northern California in the last few years. This makes the data-space-geek in me very happy.

Stay subscribed for more.

And I will heed Carl Sagan’s words: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”