Starting with the desire to personify this historic mission and expand the audience to those outside of the scientific community, WOW set out to create an immersive installation allowing participants to experience the Cassini mission entirely through it’s memories. Conceived and directed by Tyler Bowers of WOW, in collaboration with New York based artist Gabriel Pulecio, BEYOND CASSINI celebrates the life and death of one of NASA’s most successful satellite programs by allowing viewers to step inside the mind of a satellite.

It’s been said that just before a person dies their life’s biggest moments flash before their eyes. BEYOND CASSINI uses this narrative to celebrate the accomplishments of one of the most successful and beloved Satellites in space exploration history.

As Cassini took its final flight into Saturn’s upper atmosphere with a mission of disintegration, visuals flash back through time giving viewers highlights of this dying satellite’s life. Fleeting moments and flashbacks allow viewers to celebrate 20 years of Cassini’s achievements in a very personal, non-linear, stylized exhibition.

Inside Beyond Cassini, CGI graphics by WOW created the feeling of a holographic world, where there are no visual boundaries. Stepping inside a mirrored infinity room, featuring the LED infinity mirror techniques Pulecio has shown internationally, the installation plays with bending the perception of space and time. Synchronized with intricate sound design produced by award winning composer Jeff Dodson, the viewer truly is ingrained inside of Cassini’s mind as an interstellar machine.

The installation took advantage of Derivative’s TouchDesigner software. TouchDesigner triggers the video and LED animations perfectly synced with the audio. It also runs different random LED patterns on the floor in the passive state which consists of 10 individual modular panels, with 400 LEDs each.

Beyond Cassini opened in New York’s hpgrp Gallery, in Tribeca lower Manhattan to record breaking crowds. The installation went on to be featured online in Engadget, Vice and Frame. Our main demographic was achieved attracting not only space enthusiasts but young adults ages 20 to 35 years old, most of them first hearing about the event through our online social media campaign on Instagram, Facebook and from key influencers who also were in attendance.