Walk the Solar System
Louise O'Connor (British, born 1982)
Design Interactions Department
(est. 1989)
Royal College of Art
(UK, est. 1837)
2010
Performance
Visual representations and models
of the solar system do not allow us
to experience its vastness firsthand,
so Louise O’Connor, with Walk the
Solar System, re-created it at human
scale. Her experiential version took
place in a London neighborhood with
the help of some of its inhabitants.
O’Connor projected the relative distances
between planets onto a two-mile route
beginning at Kingsland Road, Dalston, and
ending in Stamford Hill; at each planet’s
position she recruited a shopkeeper
who, if asked, would produce an object—
a ball bearing, an orange, a yoga ball—
that proportionally represented the
planet, so that visitors could playfully
and physically engage with a dimension
utterly removed from their own
experience. The project was photographed
in situ by Mark Henderson.
Category: Worlds
Tags: Interfaces / Maps / Visualizations / Networks / Open Source / Communications
