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Second Moon, 2013
Lunar meteorite, box
Images from the Second Moon App showing relative position of other planets
Photos © courtesy of the artist
Photo
© MJC
A new
moon goes into orbit for one year
Courtesy
the artist Second Moon, September 2013
KatieofPaterson,
- September 2014
A
At 2pm on 8 September 2013, a new moon will begin a year-long orbit of the earth. Second Moon is the
creation of artist Katie Paterson. A small shard of the moon will be launched as part of the British
Science Festival 2013.
This particular moon’s orbit will, however, be man-made. UPS will collect the carefully packaged
fragment of lunar rock from the Great North Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne and take it anti-clockwise
across the UK, China, Australia and the USA at approximately twice the speed of our moon: over one
year, Second Moon will orbit the earth 30 times.
A free app will become the real time portal to the geographies and topographies of the lunar
meteorite’s journey, allowing the public to track its journey and visualise it in relation to the user’s
location, the moon’s location and the orbits of the other planets in our solar system.
Viewers can also watch Second Moon’s progress on iPads and via projections in various public locations
across the world, including Newcastle’s Great North Museum Planetarium.
Katie Paterson says: “I’m sending a shard of the moon which once fell to earth into a new orbit creating a temporary, human-made moon which is both real and imaginary. It is an infinitesimal gesture
that connects the galactic to the mundane, from customs hold-ups and airport regulations, to the 29
year orbit of Saturn and the shifting planets finely held together by gravity. People in different parts
of the world will be able to imagine this new moon circling our planet, passing overhead through day
and night. Our planet is one of billions of others; the universe may be swimming with moons. There are
166 natural satellites in our solar system, Phobos, Deimos, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Kiviuq…Now
we can look up to the sky and imagine one more, NWA 6721, Lunar Brecchia, earth’s Second Moon.”
The artist’s work constantly references intangible, natural phenomena, such as the moon. She
combines sophisticated and totally mundane technologies to allow people to engage with the natural
environment, collapsing the distance between us and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos by
working with a whole range of specialists, be they astronomers, electrical engineers or amateur radio
enthusiasts known as 'moon-bouncers’.
In the past, Paterson has broadcast the sounds of a melting glacier live to visitors on mobile phones in
an art gallery (Vatnajökull (the sound of)) 2008, transmitted Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata to the moon
and back (Earth-Moon-Earth) 2008 mapped all the dead stars known to humanity (All the Dead Stars)
2010, compiled a slide archive of the history of darkness across the ages (History of Darkness) 2011,
custom-made a light bulb to simulate the experience of moonlight (Light bulb to Simulate Moonlight)
2009, and buried a nano-sized grain of sand deep within the Sahara desert (Inside this desert lies the
tiniest grain of sand) 2011. Eliciting feelings of humility, wonder and melancholy akin to the experience
of the Romantic sublime, Paterson's work is at once understated in gesture and yet monumental in
scope.
Second Moon is part of “Katie Paterson: In Another Time”, the largest and most ambitious exhibition of
Paterson’s work to date, co-produced by the Mead Gallery with La Casa Encendida, Madrid and
Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Brian Dillon, art critic and editor of Cabinet Magazine, says:
“The word ‘poetic’ is a treacherous one to apply to any artist, but Paterson's is a poetry of knowledge
and mystery, cosmicomically rendered…. Second Moon turns the circulation of heavenly bodies into
mundane, everyday logistics or transport. Once again in Paterson’s work, the movement of metaphor is
also a movement of return: physical or astrophysical fact becomes wondrously estranged but is brought
succinctly down to earth. The work is ambitiously metaphorical and at the same time oddly literal.”
Second Moon has been commissioned by Locus+ in partnership with Newcastle University and Tyne &
Wear Archives & Museums. Supported by Arts Council England, Adelaide Festival, Newcastle City
Council, the Mead Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Catherine Cookson Foundation.
Produced by Locus+ with production support from Elmsly. App design by Fraser Muggeridge studios and
Supermono.
For further information and images please contact Theresa or Alice at Theresa Simon & Partners
theresa@theresasimon.com, alice@theresasimon.com + 44 (0)207 734 4800
Notes to editors
www.secondmoon.org.uk will be live from mid-August
About Katie Paterson
Since graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007 Katie Paterson has gone on to exhibit
internationally, from London to New York, Berlin to Seoul, and her works have been included in major
shows including the Hayward Gallery, Tate Britain, Kunsthalle Wien and the Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney. Her artworks are represented in collections including the Guggenheim New York and the
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Edinburgh. She was winner of the Independent’s Creative 30
award ‘for Britain’s most creative young person’. This year she will be awarded an Honorary Fellowship
at Edinburgh University in recognition of her major contribution in fostering collaboration between the
arts and sciences.
www.katiepaterson.org
About Locus+
Locus+ is an internationally recognised arts organisation that has been engaged at the critical edge of
contemporary art in the UK for the past 20 years, commissioning, curating and publishing some of the
most innovative art projects in the UK over this period.
From its base in Newcastle upon Tyne, it has produced and presented socially engaged, collaborative
and temporary projects, primarily in non-gallery locations. In each project, place or context is integral to
the meaning of the artwork. Locus+ is critically respected for having a regional, national and
international track record of working with artists to produce challenging commissions of artistic
excellence in the social domain.
The organisation has commissioned significant work and promoted many artists who have become
nominees and winners of major cultural awards including: Chris Burden, Douglas Gordon, Mark
Wallinger, Nathan Coley, Anya Gallaccio, Richard Wright, Fiona Banner, Cathy de Monchaux, Toby
Paterson and Matt Stokes.
www.locusplus.org.uk
About Newcastle University
Newcastle University is a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive UK universities.
As a civic university, it promotes and values appreciation of the creative arts and cultural heritage by
both academic and public audiences. The Great North Museum: Hancock and the Hatton Gallery, along
with our public lectures, concert programmes and literary events, provide a bridge between academic
research and teaching and the wider world of culture, heritage and the arts.
About Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) is a major North East regional museum, art gallery and
archives service. It manages nine museums and galleries across Tyneside and the archives service for
Tyne and Wear. It is supported by the five local authorities of the area and Newcastle University. TWAM
is also a Major Partner Museum funded by Arts Council England and has Core Funded Museum status.
The Great North Museum: Hancock is managed by TWAM on behalf of Newcastle University. The
Museum brings together the North East’s premier collections of archaeology, natural sciences and world
cultures under one roof together with a planetarium and learning spaces. It incorporates collections
from the original Hancock Museum, and from Newcastle University’s former Museum of Antiquities and
Shefton Museum.
The Great North Museum is a partnership between Newcastle University, Tyne & Wear Archives &
Museums, Newcastle City Council, the Natural History Society of Northumbria and the Society of
Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.
www.twmuseums.org.uk