Two-channel video, color, sound, 22:55, 2025

Filmed at the Esrange Space Center, Kiruna, Sweden

Experiments documents scientists at work preparing two balloon launches (BEXUS 32 and 33) that took place in September 2023 at the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden. Eight scientist teams from across the EU competed for the chance to launch their experiments to the stratosphere in a program called BEXUS (Balloon Experiments for Undergraduate Scientists). The teams worked for two years in anticipation of this moment. The installation shows the scientists at work finishing and testing their experiments. It shows them at meetings, in conversation, at play and rest, and waiting anxiously for the weather to stabilize so the balloons can lift off. The scientists stay focused on their boxes containing their experiments. They rarely leave the workshop except to eat or sleep. Tensions rise, new alliances and connections form. After some suspenseful nights, the first balloon and several days later the second balloon launch successfully. The second screen, which alternates as a measure of time passing, presents what at first appears to be a passive landscape. However, the atmosphere and landscape impact what the scientists and technicians can do. At one point, the filmmaker’s hand is shown in the frame, holding the experiments she made for the launch. This two-channel video never shows the balloon lifting off. The balloon launches themselves are presented in the installation in a separate video called The Wonder.

Filmed at Esrange Space Center, Kiruna, Sweden at the BEXUS 32/33 campaign, September 2023

Production, Camera, Sound, Edit: Jenny Perlin

Sound Mix: Paul Hill, Wexner Center for the Arts

Support provided by the Oslo National Academy of Art, The New School, New York, and the Film/Video Studio at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio

Special thanks to Armelle Frenea-Schmidt, Swedish Space Corporation

BEXUS programs supported by

European Space Agency (ESA), Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA), Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, University of Bremen, Germany (ZARM) German Space Agency (DLR)

BEXUS 32/33 Teams and Institutions:

ALMA: Atmospheric Laser Measurement of Aerosols

Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

HERCCULES: Heat-transfer and Environment Radiative and Convective Characterization in a University Laboratory for Experimentation in the Stratosphere

Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain

HERMES: Habited Exoplanet Research Measured by Eminence Stokes

University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO), Switzerland.

ROMULUS: Radio Occultation Miniaturized Unit for Leo and Upper Stratosphere

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

SPACIS: Sound Propagation in the Atmosphere using Complex Infrasonic Signals

University of Porto, Portugal

TOTORO: Test Observations of Transient Objects and RadiO

Warsaw University of Technology, Poland

CASTOR: Combined Analysis Sensor for Trioxygen and Oxygen Richness

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

SBGA: miniaturised multi Sensor Box for spaceborne Geodetic Applications

Technical University of Munich, Germany 

Participants (alphabetical by last name):

Jose Miguel Alvarez Romero, Yazan Alassi, Gabriele Agresti, Rodrigo Azevedo, Pedro Luis Barba Navarette, Malik Baumer, Blanca Boado Cuartero, Gabriele Bocacci, Swann Brede, Karol Bresler, Steffen Calmer, Maurycy Ciarka, Victor Cochet, Francisco Colimo, Paul Figueroa Cotorogea, Matteo Favre-Balle, Alexandre Ferreira, Armelle Frenea-Schmidt, Thibaut Gantner, Arwed Gadau, Gloria Gelosa, David Gonzales, Léa Kaisæan Hina Hassig, Johann Henzelmann, Annie Johannsen, William Juntti, Elsie Kiema, Georg Kretschmer, Markus Lötzsch, Torsten Lutz, Simon Mawn, Rafal Mysztowski, André Nogueira Soares, Emil Nordquist, Flavio Pasqualie, Angel Luis Porras Hermoso, Benjamin Schmid, Aliksandra Shmyk, Ian Solomon, Arunima Das, Anthony Dauliack, Elisa DePaolis, André Dietz, Aloys Duplan, Evelina Svanstrom, Jonathan Holtkamp, Karen Hård, Katarzyna Wiater, Teodor Salomea, Alessandro Rossi, Lorenzo Rossi, Jan Witte, Zawila Ryszard, Lova Winroth