What does a heatwave look like to a satellite? To a plant? To a human body? These are the questions at the centre of Sensing the Heat, a new installation by artist Kyriaki Goni developed during her residency at ESPI under the S+T+ARTS Ec(h)o programme.
Goni, a multidisciplinary artist based in Athens working across media, has spent the residency exploring how satellite data, plant biology and human perception each register the same thermal condition in entirely different ways.
“The collaboration with ESPI has offered a unique context in which to think about how space technologies shape the way we understand climate change on Earth, and how these forms of observation inform policy, care and collective decision-making. As extreme heat becomes an increasingly tangible condition across Europe and beyond, Sensing the Heat translates satellite data into material, visual and bodily experience, asking what it means to sense heat across different scales — from orbit, to plant metabolism, to human touch.”
At the centre of the installation is pearl millet (Cenchrus americanus), one of the world’s most heat- and drought-resilient staple crops. Rather than depicting the plant, Goni uses it as an indicator species: a living register of thermal stress.
The work draws on Earth observation data from the ESA-EU Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite, which continuously monitors land surface temperature, and looks ahead to FLEX (Fluorescence Explorer), a mission scheduled for launch in September 2026 that will observe the earliest optical signs of vegetation stress through solar-induced fluorescence. The data comes to life as the temperature readings control how brightly the uranium glass sculptures glow under ultraviolet light, and how warm a separate touch panel becomes, so visitors can both see and feel the plant’s heat stress directly. These measurements feed at the same time a real-time digital twin of the pearl millet plant.
The installation draws live satellite data from the Sahel, a region presented not as a distant crisis but as one of the first places where extreme heat has shaped ecological life for decades. As heatwaves become more frequent and more deadly across Europe, the Sahel offers what Goni describes as a precursor of a shared planetary condition, rather than an isolated one.
To bring this to life, Goni worked closely with glass artisans and engineers on fluorescence testing, glass structural prototyping and the development of the thermal interface. It is this kind of work, translating satellite data into something people can see and feel, that the residency exists to support, using art to communicate the importance of Earth observation to new audiences.
Sensing the Heat is currently in the final stages of prototyping and technical development.
About the artist
Kyriaki Goni is a multidisciplinary artist based in Athens, Greece, working across CGI video, sculpture, textiles, sound, coding, drawing and installation to explore the intersections of technology, ecology and more-than-human worlds. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at The Breeder (Athens), KVOST Art Collection Telekom (Berlin), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Aksioma (Ljubljana), Drugo More (Rijeka) and SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen), and in international exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale, Ars Electronica, the Warsaw Biennale, Transmediale and the Istanbul Design Biennial. She has received commissions, awards and fellowships from STARTS, Ars Electronica, Telekom, Allianz Kulturstiftung and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and has held residencies at Delfina Foundation in London, Onassis ONX in New York and Onassis AiR in Athens.
Sensing the Heat s developed as part of the S+T+ARTS Ec(h)o Residency Programme, hosted by ESPI in Vienna, which investigates Earth observation technologies through artistic research within the context of Europe’s green, digital and social transitions.
More information: https://kyriakigoni.com/
