On May 22 at Heft Gallery in New York City, “Redshift” transformed a gallery space into an existential experience for an intimate audience. The immersive audiovisual performance, created by artist Ashley Zelinskie and DJ and producer Illich Mujica, combined live electronic music, custom coded visuals, NASA-inspired visuals and spoken narration in a cosmic journey through light and sound.
The sold-out event opened with a listening session from NASA’s golden record — the message launched aboard the interstellar probe Voyager in 1977 to offer a piece of Earth to any intelligent life that could find it. Played through the Joe Doucet-designed “Volumes” listening system, the opening moments set the tone for a performance grounded in science, art and wonder.
Based largely on images captured by the James Webb Space TelescopeZelinskie’s images, projected on a gallery wall, shifted through wavelengths of light to simulate the astronomical phenomenon of redshift: the stretching of light through space and time. Mujica’s live audio performance moved alongside stunning visuals, weaving ambient electronic music, psychedelic rock, and NASA-inspired spoken word samples to deliver a psychedelic event that was meditative and hypnotic at times.
In the conversation below, Zelinskie, Mujica and gallerist Adam Berninger talk about how “Redshift” came to life, Webb’s images behind the images, the inclusion of “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd and more.
Space.com: How did you decide which part of NASA’s historic Golden Record to open the experience?
Adam Berninger: The evening began with a listening session to NASA’s Golden Record, the sounds of Earth encoded on a record and launched into deep space in 1977 aboard Voyager. A message from us for whatever may be out there. We heard the opening greeting from the United Nations followed by a selection of music.
The record was played on the Joe Docet-designed Volumes listening system, conceived as spatial listening instruments rather than conventional audio speakers. They are installed as the centerpiece of ours. “Transmissions” Initiativecreated to bring together important musical experiences with a variety of system-based artworks in our LES gallery, Heft. These events will take place from May 15 to June 12.
Space.com: “Redshift” was shaped by both astronomy and sound design. How did the concept evolve between the two of you?
Ashley Zelinsky: Once Illich and I decided we wanted to collaborate on Transmission, we met in my studio to come up with our concept. We liked the way sound and light are waves (sometimes). redshift It happens when light ages, the waves lengthen and become longer or redder. This is similar to the Doppler effect with sound. During my time working alongside the Webb Telescope team, which is an infrared telescope for this very reason, I became familiar with this phenomenon. Our concept for “Redshift” ended up being “light at the service of sound and sound at the service of light.”
We begin our performance in the ultraviolet light spectrum and slowly shift towards red. Music also moved from experimental long wave sounds to higher BPM (beats per minute) and fuller musical scores: short light waves, long sound waves / long light waves, short sound waves. The back and forth crossing was important for us.
Space.com: The images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) throughout the performance were impressive. What observations resonated most with you artistically and why were they chosen?
Ashley Zelinsky: I am always drawn to the first images. They will always be my favorites. They had a huge impact on my art practice because I saw the telescope being built and launched, and then had the honor of being at Goddard when the first images were published. They were the main inspiration for my exhibition. Unfolding the Universe: First Light in 2021 at Onassis ONX Studio.
I made several images based on the cosmic cliffs of the Carina Nebula. One of my calmest images was the slow orbit and collision of the Stephan Quintet, and at the end of the performance I felt the pulsing rhythm of rings of stardust exploding from the Southern Ring Nebula.
I also used some new JWST images, including the MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) image from galaxy M77. Each image had a background of stars formed by deep LoRA or Webb fields. I used some AI tools to create the visuals and wrote the VJ software used in the performance.
Space.com: Redshift seamlessly combined live DJ performance, surround sound design and custom visuals. What tools and techniques drove the experience?
Illich Mujica: I was a DJ and mixed the audio spontaneously during the performance using curated playlists from my catalog of 25 years of DJing. I was cutting, looping, time stretching, adding effects and mixing 4 channels of audio through Traktor Pro 4; choosing from my library ambient and electronic music (old and contemporary), psychedelic and indie rock and samples of space-related podcasts and films.
On the hardware side, I used a Traktor Z1 portable DJ mixer and sound card + AKAI Pro MIDI keyboard to control MIDI and navigate all my portable DJ equipment. While I use the mini MIDI keyboard to produce music on the go, this time it fully functioned as a DJ controller. Our two machines were connected via MIDI using an Ethernet cable connection.
Space.com: A memorable moment of the night was the inclusion of “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd. What attracted you to that particular piece?
Illich Mujica: That was my choice, and it was a spectacular moment of performance. I was frantically browsing my psychedelic rock playlist before the music went silent, hoping to find space or space-related songs. In fact, at first I was looking for David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and then I remembered “Is there Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd.
This is not one of their most famous songs, it actually works as a bridge song on the album “The Wall” between “Hey You” (a well-known song of theirs) and “Nobody Home” on Volume 2 of that album. The themes of Pink Floyd’s concept album “The Wall” revolve around aspects of alienation, trauma and self-isolation.
When I first heard “Is there anyone out there?” In my adolescence I understood it as an internal monologue of the mind; that detached monologue someone might have when dealing with mental health issues; but over time, after many years, for me, the theme of this song as I hear it, transformed into the age-old question of “is there life on other planets?”
I love playing this in listening sessions and felt its more abstract, ethereal, sonic qualities fit the nature of our Redshift performance better than Bowie’s song; especially since I knew I was about to mix up a sample podcast interview with the team at Artemis II Expedition where one of the astronauts talks about whether or not there is life (or anyone) out there.
Space.com: The spoken word samples and narration added a cinematic layer to the performance. Can you talk about the voices and stories woven into the show?
Illich Mujica: As I mentioned, it was a selection of samples that I excavated exclusively for the performance. For one thing, I tried a question a kid asked the crew of the Artemis II on the NY Times podcast. The Diary. The question was “is there life out there?” and one of the answers that one of the team members shared left me stunned:
“If you look at the nearest neighbor galaxy, which is Andromeda – let’s say there’s another amazing civilization there with the most amazing telescope, looking at Earth right now as we talk – what do you see? – They saw us a couple of thousand years ago, so… we’re not here. That’s our closest neighbor galaxy, so that gives you an idea of how difficult it is to look for life in the universe…”
This concept also relates to the spirit of Redshift and light as a measure of time. The opening sample is also from “The Daily”, in the same interview they used the boy singing about going to the moon as an introduction.
For “The Daily,” the show was about space travel; for me, it was about that, but more importantly we were about to embark on a sonic journey with Joe Doucet’s “Volumes” sound art/sound system.
The other sample used is that of my friend Tory Stolper, whose spoken word poem is part of our song “Surya Rising”. Not only was I able to play my original song on this incredible sound system, but I was also able to present a never-before-played sample of her voice memo messages, where she was unsure about the creative process of the song from her perspective, as a prelude to our song about to be mixed.
It’s one of my most famous songs (with her), and I knew my audience and my fans were waiting for this one to come out on the amazing sound system. It was a pleasure for them, but it also fit the cosmic nature of the performance.
“Surya Rising” (Surya = sun in San script) was a song I wrote about the sunrises at Burning Man. It talks about the feelings that this cinematic sunrise in the desert evokes as we find ourselves on this amazing planet.
You can listen to the entire mind-blowing performance. in Sound cloud. Explore Ashley’s artwork at your websiteand immerse yourself in illich’s musical journey here.
