2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageRealities, Projected
Mark Chen
Friday, October 20 - 10:00AM to 11:00AM
Corn Center, Room 158
The images of distant nebulae and galaxies captured by Hubble and James Webb are ever more stunning. Being an artist as well as an astrophile, I'm intrigued and motivated: how can I depict these scientific beauties artistically?
Spacescapes are exotic; landscapes, on the other hand, are mainstream visual art. A marriage between the two will convey the alien with the familiar while underscoring their coexistence in nature.
I wanted to juxtapose the galactic and geological, but not with Photoshop or AI; here's why. Consider the millions of years for the galactic light to travel and the geological formation to form, and the cost of 10 billion dollars to put James Webb in orbit. For me to be part of this grandeur, there should be a journey, physical efforts and even financial investment. Though tiny in comparison, there ought to be sacrifices.
THE PROJECTION The closest thing to bringing the galaxies "down to Earth" is to project them. Altering landscapes isn't my invention, but projecting photographs as I envisioned, hundreds of feet wide on cliffs, has not been done before. Searching the market, I found no projectors packing adequate power and portability. It then dawned on me that a projector operates in the reversed function of a camera. I modified a film camera, placed a slide at where the film used to be and backlighted it with a flash. A light-receiving camera became a light-emitting projector. With wireless triggers, the projector fired in sync with the camera(illustration included).
THE SCIENCE To make the juxtapositions visually harmonious as well as scientifically informative, I added a dimension of time. The mind-blowing eternities for the galactic light to travel here and for the geological formation to form as we see today are exponentially more enlightening when matched and compared. For example, the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, could be paired with the stalactites in Carlsbad Cavern, 2.5 million years old. They are two lost siblings posing for a portrait for the first time. With this parity, the juxtapositions wouldn't just look nice, they would also cohere.
THE PILGRIMAGE In a year, I've projected at over a dozen iconic sites, producing a portfolio of 40+ images and videos. I backpacked in the wilderness and spent a productive month as the artist in residence in Grand Canyon National Park. These journeys transformed me into a pilgrim, traveling to the holy grounds for our species and making offerings of celestial images by the best of our species, completing a mission initiated by NASA's public domain images. I hence titled the series Pilgrimage of Light.
THE PRESENTATION In my past series, I have digitally composited many make-believe images. 30 years into Photoshop, the advent of image generating AI brings synthesized reality to a new level. For Pilgrimage of Light, I forgo powerful technology and choose footwork. Which process constitutes a legitimate agency? Am I betraying a high tech Goliath and siding with a low tech David? I will raise these questions, detail the concept and technique, present the images and recount my pilgrimages including a bear encounter. At the end, I will demo the projector and project on the audience(see included example from Grand Canyon residency) with realtime results on the screen and share on Instagram.
speaker
Mark Chen
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