Richard Kriesche
«Artsat»

On October 6, 1991, during a special live TV-broadcast, artist Richard Kriesche transmitted the image of his hand into space where this image was received by Austrian cosmonaut Franz Viehböck on board of the MIR space station. On this day, MIR on its orbit around the earth, was positioned for a few minutes within radio reach from Graz. This made it possible that Franz Viehböck could respond to Kriesche's hand by sending a radio message to Graz via a special ham radio equipment called AREMIR . This message, or rather its code manipulated and changed the sound of the Blue Danube Waltz which formed the musical background of the live event at the Graz broadcasting house and on TV—«as if by the hand of an invisible conductor.» Simultaneously musical parameters of the changed Danube Waltz were destilled by spectral analysis and recorded in a PC. These parameters started to play a piano, and then triggered the movements of a welding robot, which inscribed the code from space on a high grade steel disk (3,5 m dia.). This disk was later installed at the Schlossberg in Graz as an art-work in public space. The same code that had inscribed this big disk was also passed on to 10 composer/musicians/artists as the basis for their short ARTSAT radio-pieces. These pieces were broadcast on KUNSTRADIO and thus—in space—melted back into the ‹data background› from which their code had been derived originally.

(Source: http://www.kunstradio.at/1991B/31_10_91.html)