In the audiovisual streaming installation «SOL», the visitor meets a scientist in a 1:1 encounter. The scientist is on an extraterrestrial research station and talks about the phenomena of her unusual habitat.

The scenario is inspired by the novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. The prototype shows a first project sketch in the transcription of the novel from sci-fi to cli-fi (climate fiction). In Lem’s novel, a cosmic research expedition encounters an alien being endowed with life that covers the planet Solaris as an «ocean». We relate this to the «critical zone», that thin layer of our biosphere, which – in the sense of the Gaia hypothesis of Margulis, Lovelock or Latour – can also be seen as an unfathomably complex being. The novel thus symbolises the dilemma of (post-)modernity: terraforming interventions lead to a thermological disaster that will irreversibly change the complex structure of our planet. How do we orient ourselves in a world that is becoming increasingly alien and inhospitable to us?

The prototype is being created in the context of the «Telematic Performance Format» research group, which is based at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology and the Immersive Art Space at the Zurich University of the Arts. It explores simultaneous performances in augmented stage realities. SOL is an immersive streaming performance in which a single spectator can immerse him-/herself in the proceedings in another remote stage space in real-time and interact live via a 3D sound environment and 360°video transmission.