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voyager one
November 2013 - May 2017

a collaboration with artist David Bowen

voyager one is a contemplative time and color based project that attempts to create a physical sensory link between the incredibly remote space probe and the human experience. As the probe travels to extremes in space, our understanding of location and cosmic borders lack tangible connection to our spatial reality. This work creates a very simple connection to this traveling object as a metering device that feeds color information. The pin-point of colored light emitted by the LED device parallels our experience of gazing skyward and looking for a sign of this distant muse.

This single LED device produces a color output based on data from the position of the Voyager One spacecraft launched in 1977. The custom software we designed uses Voyager's current distance from earth and current distance from the sun. It also calculates the current distance between the sun and earth and uses all of this information to triangulate Voyager's location. The program then scales each of the angles of the triangle outputting them to Red, Green and Blue respectively. The color exhibited is very slowly shifting as the most distant human made object travels outside our solar system.

As an extension of the physical project within and beyond the gallery presence, the color output of this project is constantly accessible through an archive website that displays a sample of the color formulated from the device’s location each day.