On May 22 at Heft Gallery in New York City, “Redshift” transformed a gallery space into an existential experience for an intimate audience. The immersive audiovisual performance, created by artist Ashley Zelinskie and DJ/Producer illich Mujica, blended live electronic music, custom-coded visuals, NASA-inspired imagery and spoken-word narration into a cosmic ride through light and sound themselves.
The sold-out event opened with a listening session of NASA’s Golden Record — the message launched aboard the interstellar Voyager probe in 1977 to offer a slice of Earth to any intelligent life that might encounter it. Played through the “Volumes” listening system designed by Joe Doucet, the opening moments set the tone for a performance rooted in science, art and wonder.
Drawing heavily from imagery captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, Zelinskie’s visuals, projected on a wall of the gallery, shifted through wavelengths of light to simulate the astronomical phenomenon of redshift — the stretching of light across space and time. Mujica’s live audio performance moved alongside the stunning visualizations, weaving together ambient electronica, psychedelic rock, and NASA-inspired spoken word samples to deliver a psychedelic event that was meditative and hypnotic at times.
In the conversation below, Zelinskie, Mujica and gallery owner Adam Berninger talk about how “Redshift” came to life, the Webb imagery behind the visuals, the inclusion of Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anybody Out There?,” and more.
Space.com: How did you decide which part of NASA’s historic Golden Record would open the experience?
Adam Berninger: The evening began with a listening session from NASA’s Golden Record, the sounds of Earth encoded on a disc and launched into deep space in 1977 aboard Voyager. A message from us to whatever might be out there. We listened to the opening greeting from the United Nations followed by a selection of music.
The record was played on the Volumes listening system designed by Joe Docet, conceived as spatial listening instruments rather than conventional audio speakers. They’re installed as the centerpiece of our “Transmissions” initiative, created to bring together important musical experiences with a range of systems-based fine artworks at our LES gallery, Heft. These events run from May 15 – June 12th.
Space.com: “Redshift” was shaped by both astronomy and sound design. How did the concept evolve between the two of you?
Ashley Zelinskie: Once Illich and I decided we wanted to collaborate on a Transmission, we met in my studio to come up with our concept. We liked the way sound and light are both waves (sometimes). Redshift occurs when light gets older, the waves stretch out and become longer or more red. This is similar to the Doppler effect with sound. During my time working alongside the Webb Telescope team, which is an infrared telescope for this very reason, I became familiar with this phenomenon. Our concept for “Redshift” ended up being “light in service of sound and sound in service of light.”
We started our performance in the ultraviolet light spectrum and slowly shifted toward red. The music also shifted from long-wave, experimental sounds to higher BPM (Beats Per Minute) and more complete scores of music — short light waves, long sound waves / long light waves, short sound waves. The cross back and forth was important to us.
Space.com: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imagery throughout the performance was stunning. Which observations resonated most with you artistically, and why were they chosen?
Ashley Zelinskie: I am always drawn back to the first images. They will forever be my favorite. They made such a huge impact on my artistic practice because I watched the telescope be built and launched, and then had the honor of being at Goddard when the first images were released. They were the core inspiration for my exhibition Unfolding the Universe: First Light in 2021 at Onassis ONX Studio.
I made several visuals based on the cosmic cliffs of the Carina Nebula. One of my calmer visuals was the slow orbit and collision of Stephan’s Quintet and for the end of the performance I had the pulsing beat of rings of stardust exploding from the Southern Ring Nebula.
I used a few new JWST images as well, including the MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) image of galaxy M77. Every visual had a background of stars trained off a LoRA of Webb deep fields. I used a few AI tools to create the visuals as well as wrote the VJ software used in the performance.
Space.com: Redshift blended live DJ performance, immersive sound design and custom visuals seamlessly. What tools and techniques powered the experience?
illich Mujica: I DJ’ed and mixed the audio spontaneously during performance time using curated playlists of my 25 year catalogue of DJ’ing. I was chopping, looping, time-stretching, adding FX and blending 4 channels of audio via Traktor Pro 4; choosing from my library of ambient and electronica (old and contemporary), Psychedelic & Indie Rock and samples from space-related podcasts and films.
On the hardware side of things I used a portable Traktor Z1 DJ mixer and sound card + an AKAI Pro MIDI keyboard to MIDI control and navigate my whole laptop DJ rig. While I use the mini MIDI keyboard to produce music while I travel, this time it functioned fully as a DJ controller. Both of our machines were MIDI-linked via Ethernet cable connection.
Space.com: A memorable moment of the night was the inclusion of Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anybody Out There?” What drew you to that particular piece?
illich Mujica: That was my choice, and it was an whin-the performance moment. I was frantically browsing through my psychedelic rock playlist before the music went to silence, hoping to find spacey/space-related songs. I was actually looking for David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” at first and then I remembered about Pink Floyd’s “Is there Anybody Out There?”.
This isn’t one of their most famous songs, it actually works as a bridge song in the album “The Wall” between “Hey You” (a well-known song of theirs), and “Nobody Home” on Volume 2 of that album. The themes of Pink Floyd’s concept album “The Wall” revolve around aspects of alienation, trauma and self-isolation.
When I first heard “Is there anybody out there?” in my teenage years, I understood it as an inner monologue of the mind; that monologue of detachment someone could have when grappling with issues of mental health; but over time, after many years, for me, the theme of this song as I hear it, morphed into the age-old question of “is there life in other planets?”.
I love playing this on listening sessions and felt the sonic ethereal and more-abstract qualities of it was a better fit than Bowie’s song for the nature of our Redshift performance; specially as I knew I was about to mix in a sample from a podcast interview with the crew of the Artemis II expedition where one of the astronauts talks about whether or not there is life (or someone) out there.
Space.com: The spoken-word samples and narration added a cinematic layer to the performance. Can you talk about the voices and stories woven into the show?
illich Mujica: As I mentioned, it was a selection of samples I dug exclusively for the performance. On one hand I sampled a question a kid asked the crew of the Artemis II in the NY Times’ podcast The Daily. The question was “is there life out there?” and one of the answers one of the crew members shared just blew my mind:
“If you look at the closest neighboring galaxy which is Andromeda – let’s say there’s another amazing civilization there with the most amazing telescope, looking at Earth right now while we are chatting – what do they see? – They see us a couple of thousand years ago, so … we are not here. That’s our closest neighboring galaxy so it gives you an idea of how hard it is to look for life in the universe…”
This concept also tied in with the spirit of Redshift and light as a measurement of time. The opening sample is also from “The Daily,” in the same interview they used the kid singing about going to the moon as their intro.
For “The Daily,” the sample was about space travel — for me it was about that, but most importantly, we were about to travel into a sonic journey with Joe Doucet’s “Volumes” sound art/sound system!
The other sample used is my friend Tory Stolper, whose spoken word poem is part of our song “Surya Rising.” I was able to not only play my original song on this amazing sound system but also feature a never-before-played sample from her voice note messages, where she was unsure about the creative process of the song from her perspective, as a prelude to our song about to be mixed in.
It’s one of my most famous songs (with her), and I knew my crowd and fans were waiting for this one to drop on the amazing sound system. It was a treat for them, but it also fit the cosmic nature of the performance.
“Surya Rising” (Surya = sun in San script) was a song I wrote about sunrises at Burning Man. It speaks to the feelings this cinematic sunrise evokes in the desert as we find ourselves on this amazing planet.
You can listen to the entire mind-bending performance on SoundCloud. Explore Ashley’s artwork on her website, and dive into illich’s musical journey here.