From director Eliza McNitt, with visuals by The Endless Co., Pale Blue Dot is the sequel to our collaboration on the live VR performance Fistful of Stars. This time, we worked with Intel to develop a room-scale interactive experience around the rings of Saturn.

Pale Blue Dot is a musical project. Composer Elliot Cole studied the resonant frequency of Saturn and wrote pieces of music inspired by those silent waves in space.

Once immersed in the VR experience, the user is the conductor. Each of the 400,000 pieces of space debris floating in Saturn’s rings are musical instruments. Touch one and hear a few notes of the original score — tap many to string together a song.

Powered by Intel processors, the project immersed users in an interactive VR environment outfitted with ambisonic sound design and large scale interstellar visual effects. The experience combined the rigor of scientific inquiry with the playfulness of music composition in a way only possible in virtual reality.