Aurora Borealis (Unseen)

2 channel video projection, 5min 2008

Aurora Borealis (unseen) documents a failed attempt to witness the northern lights.

In 2006 a journey was made to the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, located 120km north of the Arctic Circle in Finland. In the two weeks spent there, no northern lights were visible to the naked eye. Every night the sky clouded over and any magnetic storms that occured were only witnessed by the scientists equipment of this specialised aurora research station.

The first screen shows a film made entirely from the reflection as seen in the artist’s iris. Seen obliquely through the wobbling, liquid reflection of a waiting eye – the footage documents the strange location and machines that the scientists used to successfully observe the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. The second screen shows footage of a dramatic Aurora storm – as seen by the observatories ‘All-Sky-Camera’.