A buzz phrase that seems to have picked up a lot of currency in recent times is the term augmented reality. The truth is that it's not a new idea at all - humans have been 'augmenting' their reality since well before Galileo pointed a contraption of glass and brass at the sky to bring the stars and planets into sharper view. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, however, there are some things that we can observe only with artificial augmentation, and it is with this act of scientific watching-at-a-distance that Watching Europa is concerned.
This multiple-screen video and audio installation is a speculative artistic contemplation on how we have begun to view our universe.
Structured loosely around the conjecture that the vast oceans of subglacial water on Jupiter's moon Europa could conceivably harbour life, the Watching Europa project is comprised of over fifty minutes of high resolution digitally-generated animation. In the exhibition setting, individual screens flicker sporadically to life with images and sound, and combinations of different sequences - invoked entirely at random - create a viewing experience that is unpredictable and ever-changing. The accompanying soundtrack is a shifting ebb and flow of chordal harmonic interactions, filled with mysterious sounds that we could easily assume to be some form of communication.
Watching Europa is the first creative enterprise from Peter Miller's Scribbletronics.