Arts & Theater

High Line Art: "NOAA: A Fall Towards Home" by Xin Liu

When

Tue, Jun 23 · 7:30 PM (+2 more dates)

Where

The High Line10th Avenue Square (in The High Line), Manhattan · Map ↗

Price

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Xin Liu fuses art and science in her sculptures, installations, videos, virtual-reality experiences, and publications. As an engineer and researcher, she has led and successfully launched two payloads to the International Space Station and one suborbital payload onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard system, and has flown three parabolic research flights. Through her artistic practice, Liu considers the personal implications of our technological advancements, constructing narratives that provide space to imagine ourselves in a world of rapidly expanding possibilities. For the High Line, Liu presents NOAA: A Fall Towards Home , commissioned by High Line Art and co-produced with Onassis ONX. Building on recurring motifs in her practice, the work takes the audience through the life cycle of one National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite. Reimagined as a sentient being, the satellite comes to life via intimate diary-like entries, narrating its journey as a permanent celestial migrant. Its real-world counterpart—NOAA-15—was launched in 1998 and became part of a long-term mission of mapping global climate change. In Liu’s work, performers embody the machine’s journey from launch to degradation and eventual retirement. Behind them, LED screens display original text and video told from the satellite’s perspective, alongside fragments from the history of orbital photography, tracing the evolving gaze through which Earth first came to see itself from above. The performance will also feature a brief lecture by the artist. NOAA: A Fall Towards Home explores the depth of despair and hope inherent in exile and disconnection. While outer space is often imagined as an escape or the new frontier, this satellite grapples with profoundly human concerns: Where is home? Who am I? Where do I belong? By transforming this overlooked, Earth-born machine into a character, Liu invites us to empathize and reconsider our own ideas of duty, estrangement, and connection. On June 16, 2025, NOAA officially ceased data delivery from NOAA-15 and its model series. This decision comes at a precarious moment for environmental science and research. In recent months, the current administration has proposed eliminating entirely the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and the next generation of satellite programs have seen their contracts cancelled. Ultimately, NOAA: A Fall Towards Home invites us to see ourselves more clearly, and serves as a soulful reminder: Earth is what allows us to be human. Based on Xin Liu’s “NOAA: a fall towards home,” a 2025 Artlab Digital Commission commissioned by Hyundai Artlab at Hyundai Motor Company.