The project ‘Exorbitant’ by Sophia Leitenmayer and Carlos León Zambrano revolves around the farewell to the weather satellites NOAA-15, -18 and -19, all of which were shut down during their weeks in the Andreas Züst Library. They received the last signals, work with satellite noises, field recordings and research on weather phenomena and space debris, and speculate on the transfer to the graveyard orbit.

The retired weather satellites, whose last signals the duo converts into lullabies for cows and decodes into images, are the main protagonists. The library is staged as an observatory and interpreted as a weather and radio station, and the archive works, along with homemade umbrella antennas, are installed at various locations in and around the building. The collected decoded data is experimentally implemented in the form of a vacuum-packed series of objects consisting of prints on thermal paper and fragments of the residence. In parallel, there is a catalogue that combines these images with visualisations of the sounds and narrative footnotes as a chain reaction of actions and humorous speculation from the books in the library. In addition, a cinematic, hypnotic multi-channel sound installation is being created, which is performed for the first time in and on the roof of the library and ultimately remain there as a loop cassette series.

Text+Photos: Sophia Leitenmayer & Carlos León Zambrano, August 2025