a connection to a remote place
© Joanna Griffin 2006
A Website commissioned by Impakt Online as part of a group theme, "Translations'.
This site is an observatory for imagining a remote environment.
The current coordinates of three satellites are translated into text and
images, which have been chosen to open up a 'thinking space' around the
invisible presence of orbiting satellites. It questions whether it is
possible to feel a palpable connection to the remote location of satellites
via the Internet.
Data displayed on the site is selected by the changing, real-time coordinates
of three satellite: one is an inhabited satellite, one an earth observation
satellite and the third is a telescope turned on distant galaxies. They
form a triptych of viewpoints and also of timescales. The webcams update
every minute, the satellite images are usually current to the day, while
the Hubble images take a year before they are released to the public domain.
The site makes suggestions through the images and texts of how we might
find access to this environment via the Internet, launches, tracking and
the imagination and it points to veiled restrictions, from keystroke tracking
to the physics of decay that determine the satellite's orbital lifespan.