Sent to the Sky, Received from the Stars explores contested relationships with orbital space. It combines images captured of and by satellites using telescope and antennas, materialised in cyanotype prints on the surface of a repurposed military parachute. The resulting aesthetic of deep blue textures floating overhead conveys a dialogue between two perspectives, representing the duality of satellites to both disrupt and produce environmental data.

The work consists of astronomy sky survey images collected from the ANU Skymapper database that are contaminated with the presence of a ‘satellite streak’ passing through the telescope view. To counter this perspective, I have developed a practice of receiving imagery directly from weather satellites as they pass overhead. This process uses an antenna to tune into specific radio frequencies on which the satellite signals are transmitted and produces an audio file that is then decoded to into an image, in a direct relationship between myself and the planetary systems of networked infrastructure.

Individual panels of the parachute fabric have been cut out and printed on with a composite of these two image sources using a chemical process of UV exposure itself indicative of atmospheric conditions, before being sewn back into a reconstructed sky.

Sent to the Sky, Received from the Stars represents digital artefacts left by technology in orbital space as well as the planetary perspectives they simultaneously obscure and enable, on the surface of a material symbolic of the geopolitical implications of our shared and complex atmosphere.

This work was developed through a 2022 ANAT Synapse Residency in collaboration with Dr. Brad Tucker, Mt Stromlo Observatory.