Katie Paterson

B. 1981 in Scotland, Katie Paterson graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2007.
She currently lives and works in London. She is represented by the following galleries: Haunch of Venison, London and James Cohan, New York.

Statement
Katie Paterson’s artistic practice is cross-medium, multi-disciplinary, and conceptually driven, with emphasis on nature, ecology, geology and cosmology. The conceptual projects make use of sophisticated technologies and specialist expertise to stage intimate, poetic and philosophical engagements with the natural environment. Combining a Romantic sensibility with a research-based approach and coolly minimalist presentation, her work collapses the distance between the viewer and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos.

Earth-Moon-Earth (Moonlight Sonata reflected From the Surface of the Moon), 2010
Sound installation
Variable dimensions
Edition 3/3
Acquisition in 2010

EARTH-MOON-EARTH (Moonlight Sonata reflected from the Surface of the Moon) is a system of radio transmission whereby messages are sent to the moon, from the earth, via Morse code before being reflected by the moon’s surface and returning to earth. The moon however, only sends a fragmentary series of the initial information sent, some of it having been absorbed by the shadows of the star or lost in its craters.
For this oeuvre, young British conceptual artist, Katie Paterson translated or encrypted Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata into Morse code and transmitted it to the moon. The incomplete message that is received back is then decrypted to give rise to a new score played by a concert pianola placed in one of the exhibition spaces.