Join composer and installation artist Nick Brooke on Saturday July 26, 2025 at 8:30 pm for an evening of celestial navigation under the stars, presented in conjunction with his immersive installation Extant, part of the exhibition Time-Based Art: Space and Time in Tune at Governor’s Island. Participants will learn to use a sextant during nautical twilight, when both the horizon and stars are visible, for a hands-on, outdoor experience at the edge of sea and sky. The evening includes a brief walk to the shore, guided star sightings, and refreshments.
We’ll meet at Harvestworks’ HQ at Nolan Park on Governor’s Island to see Extant, an immersive installation about celestial navigation amidst rising tides. After seeing the installation, we’ll pick up the celestial navigation device (the sextant) and port it over to the sea. We’ll figure out where we are, right at nautical twilight, the seafaring time where you can see both the horizon and the stars. Everyone is welcome to do star sightings and measurements. With refreshments.
Schedule:
[ferry on your own: 8:15 from GI Terminal, Battery Maritime Building- walk]
8:30 ish—meet at 10a Nolan Park Governor’s Island. Refreshments.
8:45—walk/surrey over to Craig Road on the west shore
9:00—sightings. Everyone gets a chance.
[ferry on your own: 10:00 back to GI Terminal – Soissons Landing]
📢 Celestial Navigation Workshop with Nick Brooke
🗓 DATE & TIME: Saturday May 26, 2025 @ 8:30 pm
📍 LOCATION: Meet at the Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island. Free with RSVP
Viewing the “Extant”
Nick Brooke combines sound with theater, dance, and installation, creating unique devices and performances. In his theater works, vocalists and actors are trained to mimic sampled collages of sound effects, pop songs, and musical ephemera, blurring the line between recording and live performance. Brooke’s works have been featured across the U.S. and Europe, at Mass MoCA, HERE, Merkin Hall, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the MATA Series, and the Spoleto Festival, and have been performed by the Bang-on-a-Can All-Stars, Talujon, and Speculum Musicae, among others. He has received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation awards, and multiple residencies including Djerassi, MacDowell, Bogliasco, and Bellagio. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton and teaches at Bennington College.
Extant, the installation. photos courtesy of the artist.
🌐 WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Website
🎬 ADDITIONAL LINKS
Bandcamp
Soundcloud
🎬 Press Quotes
“Brooke meticulously craft(s) a seamless, complex and intriguing sound art composition. It is operatic in scope, unfolding in layers that constantly reveal new meanings.” Culturebot
“[Brooke] intricately mashes up a dense collection of familiar and obscure musical quotations along with commonplace noises to make a fascinating score. It’s hard to not be impressed by Mr. Brooke’s meticulousness” NY Times
“An omnivorous experimentalist and craftsman” WNYC
