Dark Skies
TMulti-media installation with spatialized sound and two-channel projection on dimensional (digitally sculpted) wall, 8’ X 8’
Dark Skies is a time-based, multi-media installation inspired by the penetrating psychological and physical effects of sundown, and what follows, nightfall. It is a work that grew out of stargazing, and a deep concern about both light pollution and the recognition that communications satellites that clutter the night skies will soon conceal our view of outer space. Likewise, the alien view of earth will be obscured.
The International Dark Sky Association (IDA) defines light pollution as the omnipresence of obtrusive artificial light, which affects brain wave activity and the circadian rhythms of human and non-human lifeforms alike. The work takes as its title an astronomical reference, which refers to remote places that are free of hazy, humanmade light, which allow for an extended view into deep space and time as a unique perceptual experience. Due to the finite speed of light, stargazing also offers us a unique temporal experience, a view into the past.
Dark Skies reveals two distinct timeframes on the 24-hour clock simultaneously, a condition that can only exist by way of technology. Activating both the visual and aural senses, it invites a close meditation on the visceral qualities of a key cinematic moment—sundown. The first video proffers a crimson-coloured, vespertine sky while the second presents a night sky penetrated with milky streams of light. The spatialized sound composition emanating through the space draws primarily from field recordings captured at twilight during high summer. Each soundtrack possesses its own unique characteristics: the first emphasizes lower frequencies—deep, rumbling sounds—that are intended to shrink the listener down to the level of the microscopic, and the second offers a macro view or a “zooming out” from the world of the microscopic into outer space. Viewers are invited to migrate between the soundtracks—essentially moving between macro and micro worlds.