IF THE WHOLE SKY IS NOW A CAMERA, WHERE IS THE NEW FRAME?

Low Orbit is a wearable open source ai software designed to interface with satellites. As of January 3, 2024, 8,377 active satellites are now in various Earth orbits according to orbit.ing-now.com. Remote sensing introduces a new experience of being constantly observed by nonhuman sources for the first time. 

Historically, photography allowed us to choose how we were perceived. We could decide what was in the frame, and what was edited out. In a world under perpetual aerial surveillance, your whole self is surveilled. We are living under a sky that has become a camera, we are no longer the photographer, and we do not yet have control of how we appear within this new narrative. What does it mean to perceive ourselves through aerial images? How do we perform when the frame expands? How does the sky see me? 

Low orbit fashion is a response to this 45º shift in perspective from the horizontal to vertical.

What does this level of technological surveillance do to our understanding of living inside the frame of the image? What are the implications of having machines view us 24/7? How does it change our relationship with space/time? Sense of place? How do we move through the world differently? Is there a new psychological spatial orientation evolving? Behavior knowing we are being perceived even by nonhuman evaluators? Sense of safety? Ideas of identity? What is the impact / are the implications of removing the sky from our view in relation to our sense of orientation? How is replacing the sky with the camera / lens / seeing eye changing our daily behavior?

IF THE WHOLE SKY IS NOW A CAMERA, WHERE IS THE NEW FRAME?

  • Jewelry that alerts people when the satellites are above them

  • Clothing lights up when there’s a satellite passing over for a community experience

  • New “Find My Friends” - shift in perspective where you can now see your friends through satellite images

  • New “BeReal” - social experience where users could be pinged at the same time and their aerial images are captured as well


NYE 2018 @ The Huntington Gardens

Photographed at the Huntington Botanical Gardens on New Years Eve 2018 between 3PM and 5PM.

Pete Helvey photographed by Farida Amar

Allen Sovory II photographed by Farida Amar

Farida Amar photographed by Jeremy Quant

Farida Amar photographed by Jeremy Quant

Jeremy Quant photographed by Farida Amar

Pete Helvey photographed by Farida Amar

Pete Helvey photographed by Farida Amar

Jeremy Quant & Allen Sovory II photographed by Farida Amar

Farida Amar photographed by Pete Helvey

Farida Amar photographed by Pete Helvey

Jeremy Quant photographed by Farida Amar

Jeremy Quant photographed by Farida Amar

Allen Sovory II photographed by Farida Amar

Allen Sovory II photographed by Farida Amar

Jeremy Quant photographed by Farida Amar

Jeremy Quant photographed by Farida Amar

Jeremy Quant, Pete Helvey and Allen Sovory II photographed by Farida Amar



BREAK Music Video for Hil Jaeger

“I would never hurt you,” is what we say in the wave of love when our nerve endings are braided together, when our motion is synchronous, when our bodies are inseparable… And then the wave breaks. 

LOS ANGELES, CA — Electronic producer, vocalist, composer and engineer Hil Jaeger, in collaboration with independent audio/visual art collective Unraveled Artists, brings to you an unconventional music video for her newest single Break. Conceived by Creative Director Farida Amar, filmed by Cinematographer Viktoria Raykova, and edited by Jaeger herself; this visual experiment documents tension and release in subtle nonverbal communication between Jaeger and performance artist Kira Preston as they explore the phenomenon and intimately familiar emotional entanglement of heartbreak.

Break opens in medias res within a relationship narrative, intentionally positioning the viewer as voyeur into an improvisational process of lovers probing the seemingly infinite facets of their connection with subtle choreography. Mirrors paired with congruent flesh tones and slippery, synchronous motion creates sensations of endless recursion; the camera focuses and blurs. The push and pull dynamic of infatuated lovers devolves and a quiet violence ensues. Jaeger’s emotive tenor emphasizes this as the scenes of her performance become increasingly wrought and writhing while the scenes between the two lovers remain coolly lit and methodically articulated. This breakdown will seem familiar to anyone who has ever felt love slip between their fingers. The one we love stays the same, but suddenly we start to see them differently. We push and find there is no longer a response. The magnitude we once carried effortlessly now becomes an unbearable weight.

Break began in an apartment in Brooklyn with female musician Jaeger and her aerialist love/r, where they recorded their friend playing extended technique harp. Samples of that recording became the ghost that haunts the corridors of this song. With a bleeding heart, Hil carried Break back to Oakland where she built and mastered the song in her home studio beat by beat. The visualization of this journey was filmed at Everybody Los Angeles, a queer friendly health and wellness facility, by four queer identifying women who fearlessly confront love in its various formats. Break is now being brought to you with love, perhaps the most powerful challenge we can overcome.

SONG : B R E A K / ALBUM : CMPRSSN / MUSIC PRODUCTIONRECORDINGMIXINGPERFORMANCE & VIDEO EDITING : Hil Jaeger / BODY PERFORMANCE : Kira Preston / CREATIVE DIRECTIONPRODUCTION & STILL IMAGES : Farida Amar / CAMERA OPERATIONCINEMATOGRAPHY : Viktoria Raykova / LOCATION : Everybody, Los Angeles



Galaxies Are Growing Inside Me

Galaxies Are Growing Inside Me was a summoning of life and the inevitable colliding of that which lives. It was attraction and repulsion, where creatures of the night met the light of day. Where sound was sent into concrete high rises. Wake up little crickets, and chirp towards the sun. Close your eyes human, and rest in the shade. Let yourself climb towards the sky, flip upside-down and use your fingers to trace the outline of your own shadow on the ground below.

MUSICIANS : EntertainmentHip to DeathNikki McKnight, Chris Gravely, Scott Box and Joshua LonerPERFORMANCE ARTISTS : Sara Gregory of MakeShift Circus and Marilyn Chen of Liquid Sky / INSTALLATION DESIGN : Farida Amar / PRODUCTION : Farida Amar

Photo Credit : Farida Amar

This show was a part of Unraveled Tours 2016.


Sleep Is Not for Those Who Dream

About the Wayfinding Installation built by Raphael Arar : This participatory installation includes a set of four electromechanical sculptures that operate in subsequent harmony and discord based on audience, performer and/or environmental impulses. Each sculpture, positioned at a Cardinal Direction, operates independently by way of a motor that strikes tensed bungee cables containing a glass orb with a glass marble. In effect, both movement and sound ensue, the latter continuously amplified by digital effects. Software manipulates and morphs the sequence at which the sculptures fire, inviting both the environment along with the participant to meddle with a sense of direction amidst time.

MUSICIANS : Brandon Tory, Model Soul and The Heavns / PERFORMANCE ARTIST : Camille Grenier / INSTALLATION DESIGN : Raphael Arar and Will Michaelsen / PRODUCTION : Farida Amar / DOCUMENTATION : Viktoria Raykova

Photo Credit : Viktoria Raykova

This show was a part of Unraveled Tours 2016.


Eventually, Everything Connects

Eventually, Everything Connects 

MUSICIANS : Canada, Airacuda and Vishnu Basement / PERFORMANCE ARTISTS : Marina Kec, Caitlin Dagle and Nicole Battestilli / MUSIC CURATING : Truong TaINSTALLATION DESIGN : Farida Amar / PRODUCTION : Farida Amar

Photo Credit : Farida Amar 

This show was a part of Unraveled Tours 2016.


Crashing Into Walls We’ve Built

About the Wayfinding Installation built by Raphael Arar : This participatory installation includes a set of four electromechanical sculptures that operate in subsequent harmony and discord based on audience, performer and/or environmental impulses. Each sculpture, positioned at a Cardinal Direction, operates independently by way of a motor that strikes tensed bungee cables containing a glass orb with a glass marble. In effect, both movement and sound ensue, the latter continuously amplified by digital effects. Software manipulates and morphs the sequence at which the sculptures fire, inviting both the environment along with the participant to meddle with a sense of direction amidst time.

MUSICIANS : Hoofwerk, Hydroplane, Wake and Whitney Lyman / PERFORMANCE ARTIST : Camille Grenier / INSTALLATION DESIGN : Raphael Arar and Will Michaelsen / PRODUCTION : Farida Amar