What does it mean to spend two months in the middle of a landscape? We’re all in the middle of landscape, so to rephrase: what does it mean to spend two months thinking and working in response to new surroundings? Where did these space ships take me?

I finished my res...

Third in residence, following Simon and Sean, taking up dwelling in these studios which seemed big when I visited them mid-build, unclad in a warehouse in Andover. Now sitting inside looking out, they’ve shrunk to fit.

I’ve been calling the Observatory home for a few...

Animations created by artist Sean Harris and projected between The Observatory structures as part of his magical and mesmerising final residency event.

(With apologies to both William Shakespeare and the Mighty Boosh for the mashed-up title of this post... did you see the episode of the Boosh when Vince and Howard are out in the desert with Carlos Santana? He has a wooden door in the middle of his towering bouffant, t...

As part of The Observatory project we have commissioned filmmaker Matthew Dunkinson to create a series of short films looking at the experiences of all the resident artists. The first film below is of artist Simon Ryder. Enjoy!

My time in the actual Observatory is now over, so the work continues back in the studio, where I have put up all the harmonograph drawings that I made at the Science Centre. Each morning in the Centre I really valued the time between 9–10am, setting this simple instru...

Today is my last day in the Observatory. It has come to feel a little like home. My time there has initiated plenty of ideas for new work, which I will now be developing over the next few months for a show in the autumn. Well, if anyone wants to know how to best light...

The research talk I gave recently in the Planetarium at the Winchester Science Centre is now online. You can find it at the front of this website. It is about 35 minutes long. Thank Phil for filming this.

A recent Horizon programme took a look at our latest understanding of how the planets circle our Sun. Away with the old idea of fixed orbits, and all those mechanical orreries that showed them nicely circling the Sun on clockwork extensions. It turns out that the plan...

I have been wanting to experiment with chalk drawing for some time, so sitting here in the Observatory on the South Downs seems like a good time to start. Drawing with white on black can, at first, appear as if you are not drawing with colour; instead two polar opposit...