Celestis Obscura

The gold rush never ended — it just moved off-planet.

Four celestial bodies: Titan, the Moon, Mars, 16 Psyche. Each the active target of commercial mining or colonisation ventures. Visitors encounter them in an intimate, dark space: each body glowing on its own screen above a desk, an old telephone waiting to be picked up. The instrument of a different era’s ambition, repurposed for this one.

We built the work to draw a direct line between historical resource extraction and the commercial space race now underway. The question driving it was simple: what do we imagine we will find when we get there?

Each station pairs a celestial body with data tracking real commercial ventures targeting it. The telephone at each desk serves as both interface and symbol. A deliberate anachronism that frames today’s space ambitions within the longer arc of human claiming and extraction.

Charlottenborg, Copenhagen / CPH DOX, March 2026