Jupiter (from SOLAR: Walking at the Speed of Light)

Massive gas giant Jupiter attracts many moons: 67 worlds have been observed orbiting in its system. First spotted by Galileo, a storm twice the size of earth has raged on the surface of the planet for hundreds of years. Using a combination of analogue, camera-less and digital processes to produce a set of photographic images and a short video piece simulating documentation of early space exploration and mapping, Michèle Lazenby responded to Jupiter as part of the SOLAR group project. The Media Arts Research Walking Group at SHU was commissioned to create SOLAR: Walking at the Speed of Light for the Catalyst Festival of Creativity, 2017. The initial idea was to create bespoke public artworks for specific sites in and around Sheffield which corresponded to the positions of different planets in our solar system in a scaled down model where the sun was positioned in the centre of the city at Sheffield's Peace Gardens. Average walking speed was correlated to the speed of light and walking distances of local points were designated in relation to the relative distances between different planets as one walked south as far as the Woodlands Valley to reach Neptune. Six members of the group created new work to represent 8 planets which were represented virtually in the free SOLAR Walking app launched in January and then later shown at an exhibition at SIA gallery. Other members of the Media Arts Research Walking Group who produced work for SOLAR were: Mark Parkin, Susannah Gent, Jeremy Lee, Sonya Robinson, Andrew Robinson and Annie Watson.