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The Greek root of the word planet, “planētēs”, means “wanderer”, a name given to the strange stars that moved across the sky.

Spectroscopy is a technique that measures the absorption of certain wavelengths of infrared light in an attempt to detect the material composition of a planet as it passes in front of the star it orbits.

Wanderer is a generative artwork that transforms spectroscopic data collected from ten planets by the James Webb Space Telescope into expressions of color and motion.

For each planet, this infrared spectrum is translated into a unique palette that is a subset of what is visible to the human eye. The rhythm of each piece reflects its planet's orbit duration. The shorter the orbit, the higher the bpm.

Scientists collect this data to aid the search for planets where life can subsist by looking for specific biosignatures that can be detected from these spectroscopic readings.

Wanderer echoes that search by iterating over a given exoplanet's data looking to match a specific signature, presenting this as foreground elements derived from the actual data, painted over a backdrop representing the wavelengths of the color spectrum that matched most closely to what was searched for.

This piece is created in coordination with scientists and engineers at NASA Goddard and Space Telescope Science Institute.

Dr Sarah Kendrew - Instrument & Calibration Scientist with the European Space Agency at STScI, providing support for the science operations of the MIRI instrument on board JWST.

Dr Christopher Evans - head of the European Space Agency (ESA) office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Dr. Chris Evans oversees all ESA personnel who support the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Achrene Dyrek and Måns Holmberg - post-doctoral researchers in astronomy.

Presented by HEFT and TORCH Gallery.



JERES, 2025.