AuroraLive is an interactive, real-time, and web-based visualization of personal and cross-cultural interpretations of the Aurora phenomena. This project and its website, a work in progress, presents the most current phase of the Aurora Project.
To celebrate the enigmatic Auroral displays, AuroraLive (online at www.aurorafeast.net) was produced in 2006 by an interdisciplinary research team from Canada, UK, Sweden and Finland. The project explores imaginary and actual narratives surrounding the Aurora, using dynamic keywords submitted from people around the world.
While spectacular displays of Aurora Borealis have been recorded since 500 BC, it is only since the far ultralight images captured in June 2000, the first global view of the double aurora that we became aware that the phenomena in the north and the south are nearly identical.
In most circumpolar cultures, the evocative Auroras have for millennia been regarded as having mythical, spiritual, and cosmological significance. Rakiura, usually translated as Glowing Skies, is the most commonly used Maori name for Aurora Australis. Aurora is also considered a reflection of great fires in the night sky as Tahu-nui-a-Rangi (Great Glowing of the Sky). In the Northern hemisphere, according to an Algonquin legend the demigod Nanahboozho would light giant fires in the sky whose reflection would be visible to people down below. The Auroral knowledge of ancient circumpolar tribes contained venerable wisdom, and it is the contemplation of these myths vis-à-vis contemporary science which inspires the Aurora Project.
One-word descriptions of the Northern Lights, submitted by global and on-site participants (via web form and SMS respectively), are passed via a database to a Flash movie. This movie can be viewed locally on a projected screen, or globally using a web browser. The visualization software cycles through a database of contributed words, triggering an emergence and fading of words with an associated vertical band of colour. The font size of the displayed word and the width of each colour band may be mapped according to the frequency of entry for each particular case. The height at which the word appears on the screen may indicate how recently that word was submitted.
AuroraLive eminently illustrates the blurring of boundaries between science, research, and art and exemplifies the potential of a focused and interdisciplinary collaborative network. The project, whether experienced as an onsite projected installation or a web-based animation, encourages an interactive, intercultural exploration of the Northern Lights.
Associated works can be found here:
carte.org.uk/aurora