Using state of the art seismic monitoring techniques, Kosmoscope renders live scientific data impressionistically, making the worldwide network of ultra-sensitive seismic microphones audible and creating an imposing, visually fractured narrative evoking the frailty of humanity in the face of geological forces.

Earthquakes have always been known as mysterious and alarming phenomena. The earliest known attempt to measure and predict earth movements was the 'Houfeng Didong Yi', invented during China's Han Dynasty in the 2nd century AD. Literally translating as 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth', the device featured eight dragon's heads holding bronze balls which would fall indicating the direction of the tremor.

With the invention of the seismograph in the c19th, a more sensitive device that could render earth movements as a drawn line, it became possible to compare seismic recordings and appreciate how these waves move through the earth.

The US geological survey estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. About 50 earthquakes are now located each day, or about 20,000 a year.

Kosmoscope utilises the Global Seismographic Network, a coordinated network of seismographic instruments publicly acessible via the internet for monitoring, research and education. While the primary focus of the GSN is to monitor earthquakes, it has other uses for example in policing the International Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Based on a Victorian optical invention, the box kaleidascope, Kosmoscope uses projected symmetry to create the illusion of an impossibly large, hanging sphere composed of abstract computer generated graphics. Destroying the symmetry of the classical box kaleidascope, Kosmoscope creates an illusion that is fragmented and chaotic, questioning the constancy and longevity of our environment evoking a sense of the balance of dynamic forces that creates it.