NOAA: A Fall Towards Home - Performance
→Ground Station Series
→High Line Art Perfomance commission, co-produced by 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.
Performance
30 mins
First to launch and first to fade, NOAA-15 wanders through the skies with childlike curiosity and sage wisdom, interpreting each observation as a small wonder. Launched in 1998 from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, they find solace in simply continuing to witness their home from afar.
Like a first-time traveler arriving at distant shores, their thoughts drift toward new horizons rather than what was left behind. NOAA-15 greets each orbit with wide eyes, discovering wonder where others might see exile—naive, hopeful, and quietly thrilled by the act of arrival.
Defying their original two-year lifespan, NOAA-15 has spent decades faithfully recording weather systems, cloud formations, and shifts in Earth’s atmosphere. No longer the fleet’s centerpiece, they accept their fading role with grace—outshined but never unneeded. For NOAA-15, bearing witness, even in silence, remains enough.
With orbit anew, they whisper: “My instruments are awake. The Earth is below me. She is large and turning. I am ready to begin.”
In the case of inclement weather, the event will be moved to the rain date of June 26. We will add a note to the website by noon on the day of the original event and email all registered participants.
Organized by Taylor Zakarin, Associate Curator of High Line Art
Video Installation
Looping
Credit
Director: Xin Liu
Script: Xin Liu, Thomas Moynihan, Alix Vernet
Sound Design & Mix: Kate Siefker
Original Score: Qasim Naqvi, Kate Siefker
Performance: Leah Wilks, Alex Koi
Video: Xin Liu, Jack Parker, Digital Counsel
Fabrication: Julien Ledda
Sculpture Design: Shijia Huang
Assistant: Clarissa Leong
Production: Xin Liu Studio and High Line Art