Angela Bulloch Night Sky: Mercury In Virgo, 2022

The works of the Night Sky series are complex LED pieces that can be hung on the wall or ceiling and that convey an animated image of the night sky. The dark blue background of the work is filled with numerous programmed LED lights, placed according to the pattern of a galaxy or constellation. Gently flickering, the points of light simulate the changing starry night scape.

Night Sky works are prepared using a program that maps the positions of the stars visible from the earth in a 3D virtual model of the universe. The artist selects an existing area of the sky but displaces the viewpoint away from Earth elsewhere in the universe, thus the final image represents the real stellar order but shown in a way that will never be seen from the earth. The change of perspective allows us to contemplate a myriad of possible ways of seeing the formations of the universe. Each work in the series presents a different night sky view, this one refers to the constellations Virgo.

Alongside smaller panels the series also includes large-scale site-specific installations. One of the most spectacular versions, Firmamental Night Sky: Oculus 12, was conceived in 2008 for the group exhibition theanyspacewhatever at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Large installation versions of the Night Sky works were also shown at the Münster Cathedral, Basel in 2010, and in Angela Bulloch's solo exhibition The Space that Time Forgot at the Städtische Galerie Lenbachhaus, Munich in 2008.