KONTAKTE, an album recorded in 1969 of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s composition for electric sounds, piano and percussion.

I listened to this album on repeat while doing my research. For me, Kontakte evokes a strong connection to science fiction – its music and sound design often feel otherworldly. Some parts are eerie and unsettling, others sound like alien chatter or the hum of a flying saucer’s engine. When I close my eyes and imagine myself traveling through space, drifting among planets and stars, it almost feels like Kontakte is the soundtrack to that journey.

Stockhausen saw himself as a kind of messenger, as someone channeling a cosmic frequency from Sirius. He later claimed to have seen visions of Sirius in his dreams, and later came to believe that it wasn’t just his celestial home, but also the place where he received his musical compositions. I found a photograph of Sirius taken with the Hubble Telescope and recreated it on black paper with acrylic paints. I wanted texture, both with the fibres in the paper and with the brush strokes, layering the paint on thickly.

For the album artwork, I wanted to capture the feeling of moving at light speed toward Sirius. The radiating lines represent stars stretching and warping as we accelerate through space. I ended up with two final versions: one featuring only the star trails, and another incorporating a painting I did of Sirius itself.