Huntington Botanical Gardens' Massive 'Orbit Pavilion' Allows You to 'Hear' Earth's Satellites

SAN MARINO, CA - Orbit Pavilion, a massive walk-through sculpture that allows visitors to "hear" the orbits of NASA's Earth-observing fleet of satellites as they whir overhead, is coming to the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino this fall for a four-month stay.

The seashell-shaped structure -- 28 feet in diameter and clad in shiny aluminum -- uses satellite tracking data provided by NASA to determine the orbital location of artist-created sounds that correspond to the International Space Station and 19 satellites circling the globe. An array of speakers within the pavilion broadcast the ever-changing soundscape created by Oakland, California-based artist and composer Shane Myrbeck.

Commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the installation runs from Oct. 29 to Feb. 27, 2017 on the Huntington's Celebration Lawn.

"We wanted a way to showcase these NASA satellites -- to bring them down to Earth, if you will," said Dan Goods, a visual strategists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "Orbit Pavilion is the conduit for that experience, bringing people into contact with the satellites as they move above us in space."

As each satellite flies overhead through space, a corresponding sound is emitted from each of the 28 speakers mounted on the structure's interior wall. Visitors walking into the installation hear sounds interpreting each of the satellites' various missions, among them a human voice, the crashing of a wave, a tree branch bending, a frog croaking.

Orbit Pavilion inaugurates a new initiative at the Huntington focused on creative collaborations with other organizations.

The new project, called "Five," pairs the facility with five different organizations over five years, bringing in a range of contemporary artists who will respond to collections and themes drawn from some aspect of the Huntington's library, art or botanical collections.

"We are delighted to have Orbit essentially launch this new project focused on artistic collaboration," said Huntington president Laura Trombley.

"The Huntington holds important collections on the history of astronomy and aerospace, and certainly JPL figures prominently in both of those narratives. The exhibition marks quite brilliantly the intersection between both institutions and our areas of common interest and endeavor."

The curators have not yet selected the organizations with whom to partner for the remainder of the "Five" project. Those selections will be made on an annual basis and announced sequentially.

City News Service; Photo courtesy of NASA