Diffractive mega-constellations: creating embodied relationships with satellite imagery

Presented at AusSTS day 2, Thursday 10 July 2025
10:30am Immersive Space & Gunditjmara 1

This presentation showcased recent practice-led research that explores the cultural and scientific implications of the growing number of satellites in Earth’s lower orbital space. As an artist, my work looks for ways to create embodied relationships with satellites to understand the nexus of planetary observation and technological expansion as the introduction of satellite mega-constellations intersects with climate change.

Based on recent research developed through an Australian Networking for Art & Technology (ANAT) residency and Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Southern California, my contribution demonstrates three examples of studio practice that critically and creatively explores socio-political relationships compressed into satellite transmissions. This includes receiving NOAA weather satellite signals via radio frequency; decoding these signals through drawing; and re-encoding the drawn image into digital space using Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) imaging.

In each of these modes, my process decompresses, draws out, and redistributes interactions between signal and noise from human and machine contributors in a landscape shaped by the electromagnetic spectrum. In doing so, these experiments identify and amplify the presence of nuanced and extraneous artifacts - often discarded as noise - into signals of what is left unrepresented by dominant and conventional narratives of data networks.