Deep Sensing traces its origins back to the legendary sound art and radio astronomy symposium “RT-32. Acoustic Space Laboratory” organised by RIXC artists 20 years ago at the Irbene radio telescope in Latvia, after its abandonment by the Soviet armed forces. Re-engaging with the site 20 years later, the artists first tried to understand the captivation of this massive antenna today, when, after the grandiose space conquest plans of the 20th century, we have finally “landed on Earth” – or, if not, as French philosopher Bruno Latour remarks, “at least we have been pointed in… another direction” – as climate change and environmental issues keep becoming more and more pressing here. Yet, we ask, why is the Earth not enough?

Moreover, these giant radio telescopes not only look upwards, they are the unique points of convergence for cosmic rays reaching Earth’s surface. In the new visualisation, the radio telescopes are no longer represented as massive objects, but as immaterial point clouds that rotate, leaving and crossing traces, following the flow of cosmic particles that fly from the Sun to Earth, impact ionospheric clouds, interact with the Earth’s atmosphere and create terrestrial wind patterns.

The artists use radio astronomy data from our Solar System, combined with environmental recordings from the Irbene radio telescope site, to create an immersive soundscape and the ‘sensorialised’ data experience. Hence, Deep Sensing strives to push the boundaries of climate science by investigating its correlations with space research, while contextualising these interactions in a socio-ecological and geopolitical perspective.