Leonard David reports on the OPTICKS project, which plans to beam artworks from the Humans in Space Art Contest to the Moon and back: To the Moon with an Artistic Bounce! – Coalition for Space Exploration.

OPTICKS is described as follows:

a project by Daniela de Paulis in collaboration with Jan van Muijlwijk and the CAMRAS team

OPTICKS is a live radio transmission performance between the Earth and the Moon during which images are sent to the Moon and back as radio signals. The project has been realized by visual artist Daniela de Paulis (IT/NL) in collaboration with Jan van Muijlwijk and the CAMRAS radio amateurs association based at Dwingeloo radio telescope (NL). Each live performance is made possible thanks to the collaboration of radio enthusiasts Howard Ling (UK), Bruce Halász (Brazil) and Daniel Gautschi (CH).

OPTICKS employes a technology called Earth-Moon-Earth or Moonbounce, developed shortly after WWII by the US Military as a form of reliable radio communication also used for espionage purposes. EME uses the Moon as a natural reflector for radio signals.

In October 2009 Daniela de Paulis and Jan van Muijlwijk started pioneering a new application of Moonbounce technology, called Visual Moonbounce, which allows sending images to the Moon and back, combining Radio Astronomy with amateur radio technologies.

The title OPTICKS is inspired by Newton’s discoveries of the light spectrum, reflection and refraction. Similarly, the colours composing an image – converted into radio signals – are bounced off the Moon (reflected and refracted) by its surface during each live performance.

The performance is introduced by live sounds of amateurs radio signals captured by the Dwingeloo antenna tracking the moon.

Here is a video of one of their performances from 2012: