SDSS
Actual coordinates of 300,000 Galaxies plotted and projected, responding in realtime to the proximity of the viewer(s). 15 feet of gallery floor space is thus isomorphically aligned to the 15 billion light years of our visible universe. All data was donated and permitted to be displayed publicly by leaders of the SDSS project.
The primary notion was to give the public an experiential and tactile grasp of cosmic scale in the hopes that it may stay with them as they navigate a more ancestral human scale in nonmediated daily life. Anyway, this work was cheaper and more accessible than actual spaceflight.
The artist wrote the 3D environment and built the sensors to allow interaction. The data is thanks to the hard work of the global astrophysical community and all others involved with the SDSS. Thanks to Michael Turner, Rich Kron, as well as Alex and Tamas Szalay for their support, and Sabrina Raaf for producing the gallery exhibition. More information about the SDSS project can be found at www.sdss.org.
tools: C++, OpenGL, MIDI, Custom Ultrasound Hardware
11 years later, this is similarly motivated, lovely, and runs in your browser.
18 years later, a new update (Data Release 18) vastly improves distance and accuracy. Press Release. (original work was done w/ release 1)
And it feels like daily there are new findings based on the SDSS data.
