APT GALLERY Exhibition, Feb 2026

APOLUNE: SYSTEMS NORMAL

Apolune Systems Normal: Project Overview

Apolune: Systems Normal is a multidisciplinary interrogation of humanity’s relationship with progress, using the Apollo 11 mission as a prism to explore the dissonance between institutional ambition and the granular realities of individual lives. By reimagining NASA’s archival materials through a neurodivergent lens, the work critiques the flattening effect of dominant historical narratives while celebrating the intricate human labour embedded within institutional records.

The work combines live performance and interactive installation across three interconnected zones, moving visitors from the threshold of physical record-keeping through a transitional sensory corridor and into the main performance and installation space. Technical systems — including gesture-controlled audio-visuals driven by a theremin, multi-surface projection mapping, and tactile archival encounters — function as active collaborators rather than passive delivery mechanisms.

Accessibility is embedded at a foundational level, supported through initial R&D with CRIPtic Arts. Adult-centric relaxed design, physical sensory maps, and multiple sensory entry points ensure visitors engage with the material on their own terms.

INSTALLATION WORKS

ZONE 1: EARTHSIDE

The threshold of physical record-keeping and memory. Linear weight of history before entering the weightlessness of the inner installation.

1.1 Briefing Desk

Primary point of contact for visitors. Front-of-house station providing accessibility support, physical sensory maps, project background materials, and anaglyph glasses. Purchases and payment handling.

Includes the PAO Loop: a desk microphone or loudspeaker mirroring an Apollo 11 Public Affairs Office communications loop, used for official announcements and launching live activations.

1.2 Telemetry Feed

A monitor behind the Briefing Desk displaying live transmission information: activation timings, titles, and “Live Transmission in Progress” status during performances.

1.3 Overview (Installation Model Box)

Physical model box of the entire installation. Provides spatial orientation for accessibility purposes and reflects the form and process of the wider work.

1.4 Iteration Bank

A stack of vintage CRT monitors showing an archive of the work’s development: R&D sharings, rehearsal footage, and process documentation.

Technical: HDMI to RCA converters; RCA cables running video from computer.

1.5 Physical Records

Paper-based archive boxes and files containing a blend of NASA Apollo 11 documents and personal/project archives. Tangible world-building through direct encounter with physical source material.

ZONE 2: MID-COURSE

Transitional space featuring a terrestrial lunar landscape — objects collected from a Dungeness field trip that feel alien but are earthly. The experience of finding the cosmic in the mundane through granular detail and curious play.

2.1 Terrestrial Proxy (KOMA / Field tone System)

Self-contained interactive unit combining tactile, sonic, and visual elements. The surface is built to evoke something between the moon and Dungeness — scattered with rocks, paper archives, and embedded sensors. Handling the objects triggers live, manipulated, granular soundscapes through a KOMA Elektronik Field Kit with contact microphones and spring reverb. Audience members wear headphones and interact directly, creating a “field trip” to an analogue moon — Dungeness as a terrestrial proxy for the lunar surface.

A monitor displays drone footage from the Dungeness field trip, while a webcam responds to visitor movement and sound, altering the shape and colour of the video feed in real time via TouchDesigner.

2.2 Official Record (Photo Wall & Splashdown)

Participation point with paper-mâché moon, backdrop, film camera, and dictaphones. Inspired by official NASA crew portraits. Primarily serves as the final Splashdown report on the way out, allowing visitors to formalise their place in the archive after experiencing the live performance or full installation.

ZONE 3: APOLUNE (MAIN SPACE)

Performance space and main installation room. The furthest point before orbital descent — to look, listen, and touch the fragments and detail.

3.1 Network Controller (Tech Desk)

Command, operations, and tech hub. Operated by the technician and Matthew during performance. Not for public interaction.

Equipment: Mac Studio running TouchDesigner and MadMapper simultaneously; MIDI controller; video capture card; network switch and ethernet cables; USB-C hub.

3.2 Orbital Plane (Ceiling Projection)

Atmospheric ceiling projection showing surface textures of the moon and Dungeness, alongside anaglyph images of the moon and office space — concrete floors, carpet tiles. Contributes to the immersive spatial environment of the main room.

3.3 Sound Mirrors (Listening Ears)

Three sculpted “Listening Ears” inspired by the Dungeness acoustic mirrors. Each sculpture has transducers attached, turning the physical forms themselves into speakers — the audience leans in to listen through the object.

Left ear: archive audio of Peyvand and Matt during the process of making the work. Right ear: original NASA recordings. Centre ear: a mix of the “silences” that fill much of the NASA audio archive — pauses, static, beeps — blended with fieldtone recordings from Dungeness.

3.4 The Monolith (Cabinet Sculpture)

Central focal point and mapped projection surface. An L-shaped stack of square filing cabinets, painted and textured with Dungeness moss. Video footage from the Dungeness field trip is projected onto the surface. Some functional drawers can be opened during live activations. Structurally stable and weight-bearing for performance use.

The Monolith is linked to Telemetry Interference (3.8) — playing the theremin distorts the projected footage in real time. The numbered cabinet layout serves as an installation guide (20 units total in a stepped pyramid formation; see separate schematic).

3.5 Peripheral Feed (Rotating Projector)

Mounted on top of the central cabinets, projected onto scrim to produce a floating image. Plays from an SD card. A fragmented, abstract mix of archive and personal material — Apollo 11 crew domesticity footage, 3D rock scans, green-screen-in-space sequences — more abstract and broken-up than the other feeds.

Technical: small portable projector on a rotating motor platform (high-torque, low speed) with SD card playback and battery pack counterweight.

3.6 Primary Feed (Back Wall)

Main cinematic area. Split-screen mapping serving both the installation loop and live performance cues. Content created in After Effects, delivered through TouchDesigner via Syphon to MadMapper for surface mapping.

3.7 Tranquility Base (Iterative Landings)

Named after the site of the 1969 moon landing. The live feed “studio” area — during live activations this is where camera, lights, and tripod operate for the real-time broadcast feed. A hybrid between training, rehearsal, performance, research, planning, and practice.

A large Dungeness rock is displayed on its own plinth with deliberate reverence — visitors assume it is a moon rock. A model rocket is suspended above the area and launches during live activations.

An overhead projector (OHP) “paints” the surrounding walls and can be switched out with different transparencies from the NASA archives — diagrams from the press kit, transcripts, technical specifications.

Interactive element: a Moon Surface area where visitors can leave a physical footprint, marking their presence temporarily.

Includes The Aldrin Station: a vintage TV screen showing Buzz Aldrin in a mental health awareness film, discussing his struggle with depression — the hero and the human.

Personal artefacts: a curated display of personal momentos, including an earthly rock collection — personal history presented as institutional treasure.

3.8 Telemetry Interference

A theremin built into a moon/Dungeness landscape surface. The instrument distorts the projected footage on the Monolith (3.4) in real time — gesture and proximity alter both the sound and the visual feed simultaneously. Its tonal range allows for non-verbal but instinctively understood expression through pitch, volume, and physical movement.

During live activations, the theremin is used to respond to the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Scene 9) — a psychological assessment answered entirely through tone and gesture rather than words.

Live Activations

The live activations are led by Peyvand Sadeghian and Matthew Robinson, who activate the installation’s full technical and narrative systems. These are not traditional performances — the artists operate within the installation as though conducting a live mission, triggering cues, handling objects, and speaking directly to and with the audience. The work draws on Apollo 11 mission transcripts, psychological self-reporting scales, memory exercises, domestic routines, and archive broadcast material.

The activations are modular by design. Three scripts — Perspective, Protocol, and Overview — share a common architecture of thirteen scenes but vary in length and combination. Perspective and Protocol run at approximately twenty minutes each; Overview runs at approximately forty-five minutes. Scenes can be extracted, recombined, and remixed into shorter configurations, allowing the work to adapt to different contexts and timeframes.

When a live activation begins, the installation transitions from its ambient loop mode into a cued state. Interactive modules transfer to standby. A PA announcement from the Briefing Desk establishes the mission countdown language, and the artists carry out pre-clearance checks before the activation proceeds.

Scene 1 Announcement — Briefing Desk

PA announcement via desk microphone, mirroring the Public Affairs Office communications loop. Establishes mission countdown language and transfers interactive modules to standby.

Scene 2 Main Space — Standby and Preset

Installation mode stops. Live mode system standby. The artists carry out individual duties and check in with each other, preparing the space for activation.

Scene 3 Radio Check (No Answer)

Performed over static and signal glitch using Apollo 11 archive audio. The artists establish radio communication across the space, mirroring the original comms protocol — repeated calls, silence, eventual contact.

Scene 4 Waiting

The artists are on standby in the rehearsal zone. Dialogue drawn from mission transcripts about the mundane reality of waiting — the Kuleshov effect, how proximity generates meaning, how context changes what we see. Buzz Aldrin’s account of depression is delivered via live feed: institutional heroism and private struggle laid alongside each other.

Scene 5 Go to the Moon? I Can’t Even Get Out of Bed

Archive interviews with the public saying no to a trip to the Moon. The artists search through objects and pull out images and memories, engaging directly with the audience. The Apollo 11 press kit is examined as a tangible record of institutional optimism — hand-typed, hand-drawn, several hundred pages.

Scene 6 Sphere of Influence

Archive audio and transcript. The Public Affairs Officer announces crossing into the Moon’s sphere of influence at 61 hours, 39 minutes. A computational changeover is made in Mission Control.

Scene 7 Story Recall (Cycle 1)

The artists narrate the Apollo 11 launch day sequence — breakfast, physical examination, boarding the spacecraft, the countdown — and ask the audience to remember the details. This becomes a shared act of attention and recall.

Scene 8 The Pantry & The Rocks

A domestic exchange aboard the spacecraft. Morning news headlines are read. Dungeness rocks are examined — geological time held against personal memory. Footage of rock collecting at Dungeness plays on the cabinet projection.

Scene 9 Satisfaction with Life Scale

A psychological self-reporting scale answered entirely through the theremin. Five life-satisfaction statements are read aloud; the theremin generates tone and gesture in place of words. The instrument becomes a means of disclosure without language.

Scene 10 Becks Anxiety Inventory

Simultaneous dual-text delivery. An anxiety symptom checklist is read alongside a poetic text about recurring states of being — the clinical and the personal spoken over the top of each other, competing for attention.

Scene 11 Story Recall (Cycle 2 — The Launch)

The audience is asked to retell the launch sequence from Scene 7. The fifteen-second countdown plays alongside archive broadcast footage. The model rocket lifts off.

Scene 12 Up Close

A moment of settling after the launch event. The artists look up through anaglyph 3D glasses at the ceiling projection. Dialogue drawn from astronaut descriptions of zero gravity — finding comfort in confined spaces, learning where to wedge yourself in.

Scene 13 Loss of Signal

The Public Affairs Officer announces the apolune — altitude 64.9 nautical miles, 86 hours and 52 minutes into the flight. Aldrin and Collins sign off. The system resets to installation mode.