‘Orbital Debris’ was an installation of film and sculpture with an ambient soundtrack made in collaboration with The Iduna Institute for Strategic Imitation & Delay.

‘Orbital Debris’ took its name from the scattered remnants of old satellites and spent rocket stages which constantly orbit the earth as space junk. This exhibition was composed of the fragmented parts of two recent mixed media installations; documents, remnants and research drifting through the medium of The Iduna Institute’s ambient soundtrack.

In one film, ‘Kapton Cadaverine Log Entry’, a handheld camera skims over the interior of a starship: various textures and surfaces glisten in the light of the camera as the ship’s lone inhabitant struggles to locate himself in time and space. The film’s narration shifts in and out of diegesis with the images, mirroring the layered registers and temporal confusion in the dialogue.

In another film – ‘Integrated Mystery House’ the ship’s inhabitant appears in front of the camera. He is filming himself rehearse a rambling and frenetic presentation about his alterations to a huge defunct control panel – a series of intricately made collages and semi-translucent sculptures. These objects are described as a mind-maps, connecting fragmented memories of a trip to Silicon Valley, a labyrinthine Victorian mansion built by the guilt ridden widow of a rifle maker and haunted by the ghosts of the gun’s victims; immigrant workers in Intel’s microchip fabrication labs made faceless by their clean-suits; the Nazi V2 rocket and its links to Bowie, Disney and Elon Musk. Through his discordant presentation to a hallucinated audience, disparate narratives and anecdotes are soldered together into a prototype for a new kind of integrated circuit.

A specially commissioned soundtrack weaved through both spaces, each song made with a specific element of Keogh’s work in mind and moulded through conversations and emails during the course of a month long the residency at 1646.