Deep Data Prototype _ 1 uses magnetometer data from the Pioneer and Voyager probes to recreate magnetic field experiments on cultures of tardigrades. Tardigrades are becoming one of the most important organisms in space bioscience due to them being poly-extremophiles and due to their ability to enter suspended animation for long periods of time. These dual characteristics suggest answers to problems of life in inhospitable places and to space travel across generations.
Following an accelerated timeline the tardigrades experience the intense magnetic fields of the four gas giant planets in our Solar System and the more subtle and complex ones at its very edges. As these now ancient robotic sensing platforms reach the boundaries of our known immediate space, our perception is simultaneously collapsed into the subtle realm of microscopic processes.
The installation consists of a custom designed microscope and electromagnetic culture vessel for tardigrades on a wall mounted platform. A projection displays the incoming data and the live video of the tardigrades in culture
The experiment is an observational one. We are able to observe and witness the behaviours and reactions of the tardigrades according to the magnetic field fluctuations they are experiencing. We have no empirical data of the outcomes, thus denying us a level of abstraction. Instead we are present with the microorganisms in the moment. We are aware that the tardigrades are within a simulation, that their reality contains another layer of information, and that they will react accordingly.
