„HEAD OF 67P - ESA ROSETTA MISSION“, 2018

«HEAD OF 67P», Physics Institute, University of Bern, CH, 23.8.2018

In collaboration with the MiARD project, led by the University of Bern, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research of Göttingen, Bernd Nicolaisen has developed his two series „HEAD OF 67P - ESA / ROSETTA MISSION“ and „CHURY OUT OF HORIZON“. The new works revolve around mysterious places that have never been seen before, places more than 400 million km away from planet Earth. Within this seemingly abstract visual world, new perspectives on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko reveal themselves to the viewers. The large-format pictures in 3D print- and tableaux-formats incorporate two different work series.


„HEAD OF 67P - ESA/ROSETTA MISSION“
„Analog Echo“
The work is based from the ESA/Rosetta mission, the three-dimensional finger print of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The analogue reproduction technique leads to a three-dimensional effect in the pictures, giving them a spatiality and a mystical glow. The effect is achieved by transforming digital data into an analog image and reinterpreting with 3D technology. (Océ elevated print on aluminium)

„CHURY OUT OF HORIZON“
„67P Abstractions“
The silhouettes of an ESA model of 67P formed the basis for this work. In order to display the surfaces, different material were used that reacted through an interplay of adhesion and cohesion. Among others through water, methanol, oxides, different pigments and powders. This leads to associations similar to the material and structures existing on the comet, which include and emphasise the effect of the tableaux.


Nicolaisen has applied this dual practice of photography and artistic interpretation first in project Comet in Deep Space (2018). For this project he had teamed up with the European Space Agen-cy to transport us deep into space - onto the dusty surface of the unusually shaped comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Having circled through our solar system for millions of years, the comet has been discovered and eventually also recorded up-close by humans between 2014 and 2016, when the ESA Rosetta Mission had joined the comet‘s orbit around the sun, and stayed with it observing its activity raise and decline. Translating data into photographic images, like in Head of 67P - ESA/Rosetta Mission, #10 (2018), Bernd Nicolaisen makes visible what no human eye has seen in situ. And (probably) never will. In a second step, titled Chury out of Horizon (2019), the photographer Nicolaisen becomes the artist, moving one step further into the realm of the imagination. For this end, he created different silhouettes from the original ESA model of the comet. Using these as outlines, he then applied a range of earthly elements that can be assumed to be found also in outer space in order to artistically interpret the information of the technical images and create fictitious “surface“ images of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. - Daniel Blochwitz



PROJECT TEAM
Physics Institute University of Bern, Prof. Nicolas Thomas, PD Dr. Martin Rubin
Amanuensis GmbH - Leandro von Werra, Dr. James Whitby

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen,
Dr. Holger Sierks

Factum Arte, Madrid
Adam Lowe

MiARD Project: This project was (partially) funded by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 16.0008-2 and the EU‘s Horizon 2020 program contract number 649660.
Credits: Bernd Nicolaisen based on the Rosetta / OSIRIS cameras, © ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA