Deep Sensing. RT-32 Revisited

Audio-video installation, dynamic data visualization, sonification. Research documentation (interview with scientists), 2002 – 2022

In 2001 we and RIXC were co-organizing the legendary symposium on radio astronomy and sound art: “RT-32 Acoustic Space Lab.” Twenty years later, we are returning to the Irbene radio telescope—which now functions as Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center, home to scientific research in deep space. Deep Sensing explores how the role of this isolated communication facility and Soviet military legacy has changed today - when, after the grandiose plans for space conquest of the 20th century, issues related to climate and socio-ecological perspectives here on Earth have become more pressing.

 

Our new research (together with Raitis Smits), however, focuses on socio-ecological issues of radio astronomy science, and its relation to climate change. How has this isolated object of communication and the legacy of the secret Soviet military industry has changed and what is its role today, when some of the most pressing issues are the challenges posed by climate change and the post-pandemic?

 

 

“Deep Sensing. RT-32 Revisited” (2022) / Commissioned by the Latvian Contemporary Art Center (LCCA), curated by Ieva Astahovska / Produced by RIXC.
“RT-32” DVD (2002) produced by RIXC.

 

EXHIBITIONS

ONX Studio, New York, March 2023

Decolonizing Ecologies, Riga Art Space, November 2022 – January 2023