Animation and Simulation with pen and ink drawings, 2020
With sounds from Saturn as recorded by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
See a high-resolution mp4 here:
https://www.mirenarhee.art/christmas-on-saturn-with-sound-animation-unity-3d-by-mirena-rhee.mp4
Christmas on Saturn is an animation and simulation with pen and ink drawings inspired by Saturn, NASA and Christmas. Or Christmas in Space. And especially a little image a friend sent me from Denmark which triggered a fury of thoughts.
It is made with Hands and Solids pen and ink drawings animated and simulated in Unity3D, with sounds from Saturn. The drawings are from a book of drawings I recently completed called "Hands and Solids".
What is special about a simulation is that it's never the same unlike a movie, no two stills are ever the same. It's chaotic just like the universe, but there is an underlying order. Every time the simulation is run the images are different, no two stills are ever the same.
Cassini's final orbits revealed a powerful interaction between Saturn and the moon Enceladus. Scientists observed plasma waves moving in a circuit from planet to moon. The waves were converted into audio we can hear. [eerie, high-pitched sounds like wind]
Time was compressed from 16 minutes to 28.5 seconds, and wave frequency was decreased by a factor of 5. Cassini captured the data on September 2, 2017, two weeks before the spacecraft plunged into Saturn's atmosphere.
Animation and Simulation with pen and ink drawings, dimensions variable, 2020
Animation and Simulation with pen and ink drawings, dimensions variable, 2020