Katie Paterson uses Earth – Moon – Earth (E.M.E), a form of radio transmission whereby messages are sent in morse–code from earth, reflected from the surface of the moon, and then received back on earth. The moon reflects only part of the information back – some is absorbed in its shadows, ‘lost’ in its craters.

In E.M.E Transmitter/Receiver, Disklavier Grand Piano [2007], Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata has been translated into morse-code and sent to the moon via E.M.E. Returning to earth ‘fragmented’ by the moon’s surface, it has been re-translated into a new score, the gaps and absences becoming intervals and rests. In the exhibition space the new ‘moon–altered’ score is played on a Disklavier grand piano. You can view the morse code here, compare the scores ’sent’ and ‘received’ here, and watch a movie here.

On November 23, earth–moon–earth (4′3”) was performed. After traveling approximately 250,000 miles, the four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence was sent from Nagano-ken, Japan.

Finally, Paterson will exhibit Ice Records - three digital films - at ROOM in early 2008. Paterson brought back sounds and water from three melting glaciers in Iceland. The sounds were pressed into three LP records - ice creaking, cracking, hissing. After several months of experimentation, molds were made from them using a very sensitive casting technique - the meltwater from those same glaciers poured into those molds and frozen, creating ‘ice records’.

These ‘ice records’ were then played on three turntables, playing the sounds of the melting glaciers from whence the water/ice had come, until they had completely melted over nearly two hours. Miniature landscapes were formed as the needle traced over the ice as it was worn down. The sound is embedded, locked, inscribed into the material itself. Playing out the dissolving landscape. Nothing remained.

Paterson is interested in the notion of ‘geological time’ – a vast span of time difficult to comprehend, in relation to ‘human time”. She wanted to bring the scale of the glacier, an immense, remote, geological form, to the ‘human’ scale of an LP. She refers to the sublime, and the futile attempt of the artist to ‘represent’ or allude to something that is ultimately unrepresentable. This act is in itself a failure.