On Could 22 at Heft Gallery in New York Metropolis, “Redshift” reworked a gallery house into an existential expertise for an intimate viewers. The immersive audiovisual efficiency, created by artist Ashley Zelinskie and DJ/Producer illich Mujica, blended dwell digital music, custom-coded visuals, NASA-inspired imagery and spoken-word narration right into a cosmic trip via mild and sound themselves.
The sold-out occasion opened with a listening session of NASA’s Golden File — the message launched aboard the interstellar Voyager probe in 1977 to supply a slice of Earth to any clever life that may encounter it. Performed via the “Volumes” listening system designed by Joe Doucet, the opening moments set the tone for a efficiency rooted in science, artwork and marvel.
Drawing closely from imagery captured by the James Webb Area Telescope, Zelinskie’s visuals, projected on a wall of the gallery, shifted via wavelengths of sunshine to simulate the astronomical phenomenon of redshift — the stretching of sunshine throughout house and time. Mujica’s dwell audio efficiency moved alongside the gorgeous visualizations, weaving collectively ambient electronica, psychedelic rock, and NASA-inspired spoken phrase samples to ship a psychedelic occasion that was meditative and hypnotic at instances.
Within the dialog beneath, Zelinskie, Mujica and gallery proprietor Adam Berninger discuss how “Redshift” got here to life, the Webb imagery behind the visuals, the inclusion of Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anyone Out There?,” and extra.
Area.com: How did you determine which a part of NASA’s historic Golden File would open the expertise?
Adam Berninger: The night started with a listening session from NASA’s Golden File, the sounds of Earth encoded on a disc and launched into deep house in 1977 aboard Voyager. A message from us to no matter is likely to be on the market. We listened to the opening greeting from the United Nations adopted by a choice of music.
The document was performed on the Volumes listening system designed by Joe Docet, conceived as spatial listening devices somewhat than typical audio audio system. They’re put in because the centerpiece of our “Transmissions” initiative, created to deliver collectively vital musical experiences with a spread of systems-based nice artworks at our LES gallery, Heft. These occasions run from Could 15 – June twelfth.
Area.com: “Redshift” was formed by each astronomy and sound design. How did the idea evolve between the 2 of you?
Ashley Zelinskie: As soon as Illich and I made a decision we wished to collaborate on a Transmission, we met in my studio to give you our idea. We preferred the best way sound and light-weight are each waves (generally). Redshift occurs when light gets older, the waves stretch out and become longer or more red. This is similar to the Doppler effect with sound. During my time working alongside the Webb Telescope team, which is an infrared telescope for this very reason, I became familiar with this phenomenon. Our concept for “Redshift” ended up being “light in service of sound and sound in service of light.”
We started our performance in the ultraviolet light spectrum and slowly shifted toward red. The music also shifted from long-wave, experimental sounds to higher BPM (Beats Per Minute) and more complete scores of music — short light waves, long sound waves / long light waves, short sound waves. The cross back and forth was important to us.
Space.com: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imagery throughout the performance was stunning. Which observations resonated most with you artistically, and why were they chosen?
Ashley Zelinskie: I am always drawn back to the first images. They will forever be my favorite. They made such a huge impact on my artistic practice because I watched the telescope be built and launched, and then had the honor of being at Goddard when the first images were released. They were the core inspiration for my exhibition Unfolding the Universe: First Light in 2021 at Onassis ONX Studio.
I made several visuals based on the cosmic cliffs of the Carina Nebula. One of my calmer visuals was the slow orbit and collision of Stephan’s Quintet and for the end of the performance I had the pulsing beat of rings of stardust exploding from the Southern Ring Nebula.
I used a few new JWST images as well, including the MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) image of galaxy M77. Every visual had a background of stars trained off a LoRA of Webb deep fields. I used a few AI tools to create the visuals as well as wrote the VJ software used in the performance.
Space.com: Redshift blended live DJ performance, immersive sound design and custom visuals seamlessly. What tools and techniques powered the experience?
illich Mujica: I DJ’ed and mixed the audio spontaneously during performance time using curated playlists of my 25 year catalogue of DJ’ing. I was chopping, looping, time-stretching, adding FX and blending 4 channels of audio via Traktor Pro 4; choosing from my library of ambient and electronica (old and contemporary), Psychedelic & Indie Rock and samples from space-related podcasts and films.
On the hardware side of things I used a portable Traktor Z1 DJ mixer and sound card + an AKAI Pro MIDI keyboard to MIDI control and navigate my whole laptop DJ rig. While I use the mini MIDI keyboard to produce music while I travel, this time it functioned fully as a DJ controller. Both of our machines were MIDI-linked via Ethernet cable connection.
Space.com: A memorable moment of the night was the inclusion of Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anybody Out There?” What drew you to that particular piece?
illich Mujica: That was my choice, and it was an whin-the performance moment. I was frantically browsing through my psychedelic rock playlist before the music went to silence, hoping to find spacey/space-related songs. I was actually looking for David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” at first and then I remembered about Pink Floyd’s “Is there Anybody Out There?”.
This isn’t one of their most famous songs, it actually works as a bridge song in the album “The Wall” between “Hey You” (a well-known song of theirs), and “Nobody Home” on Volume 2 of that album. The themes of Pink Floyd’s concept album “The Wall” revolve around aspects of alienation, trauma and self-isolation.
When I first heard “Is there anybody out there?” in my teenage years, I understood it as an inner monologue of the mind; that monologue of detachment someone could have when grappling with issues of mental health; but over time, after many years, for me, the theme of this song as I hear it, morphed into the age-old question of “is there life in other planets?”.
I love playing this on listening sessions and felt the sonic ethereal and more-abstract qualities of it was a better fit than Bowie’s song for the nature of our Redshift performance; specially as I knew I was about to mix in a sample from a podcast interview with the crew of the Artemis II expedition where one of the astronauts talks about whether or not there is life (or someone) out there.
Space.com: The spoken-word samples and narration added a cinematic layer to the performance. Can you talk about the voices and stories woven into the show?
illich Mujica: As I mentioned, it was a selection of samples I dug exclusively for the performance. On one hand I sampled a question a kid asked the crew of the Artemis II in the NY Times’ podcast The Daily. The query was “is there life on the market?” and one of many solutions one of many crew members shared simply blew my thoughts:
“In the event you take a look at the closest neighboring galaxy which is Andromeda – for example there’s one other superb civilization there with essentially the most superb telescope, Earth proper now whereas we’re chatting – what do they see? – They see us a few thousand years in the past, so … we aren’t right here. That is our closest neighboring galaxy so it offers you an thought of how laborious it’s to search for life within the universe…”
This concept also tied in with the spirit of Redshift and light as a measurement of time. The opening sample is also from “The Daily,” in the same interview they used the kid singing about going to the moon as their intro.
For “The Daily,” the sample was about space travel — for me it was about that, but most importantly, we were about to travel into a sonic journey with Joe Doucet’s “Volumes” sound art/sound system!
The other sample used is my friend Tory Stolper, whose spoken word poem is part of our song “Surya Rising.” I was able to not only play my original song on this amazing sound system but also feature a never-before-played sample from her voice note messages, where she was unsure about the creative process of the song from her perspective, as a prelude to our song about to be mixed in.
It’s one of my most famous songs (with her), and I knew my crowd and fans were waiting for this one to drop on the amazing sound system. It was a treat for them, but it also fit the cosmic nature of the performance.
“Surya Rising” (Surya = sun in San script) was a song I wrote about sunrises at Burning Man. It speaks to the feelings this cinematic sunrise evokes in the desert as we find ourselves on this amazing planet.
You can listen to the entire mind-bending performance on SoundCloud. Discover Ashley’s paintings on her website, and dive into illich’s musical journey here.
