To create the first installment of ‘The End’, Galvani enlisted the help of cameramen, engineers, producers, and pilots — a collaboration that contributed to the project’s visionary perspective. After months spent training, Galvani flew parallel to military jets in an F-18 aircraft. It was here that he captured the physicality of the sonic boom. The process is explained via a statement on the artist’s website, “As a jet plane accelerates from subsonic to supersonic speeds, sound waves compress and the atmosphere condenses in anomalous pockets of pressure. As it supersedes sonic velocity, the jet is temporarily absorbed in a cone of vapor — a nebulous portal to the sonic frontier.” The resulting depiction arrives as a compelling series of large-scale analog photographs, which document a physical manifestation of the sound barrier. Utilizing this unique perspective, Galvani filmed the setting sun as if suspended over the ocean. Traveling in a military aircraft at supersonic speed, against the earth’s rotation, the film depicts a never-ending sunset. In Galvani’s artist statement, he explains, “Time is frozen at the cusp of separation between day and night, forced perception of a ceaseless, distorted moment. Accelerated space produces violent vibrations, destabilizing the boundary of sea and sky. The video describes the tension of in-between states.” The 16mm video, projected on a silk, steel, and concrete structure, acts as a “metaphorical memorial for life, death and the transcendent beyond.”
