STAR DATA was created in 2023 after working with the Harvard College Observatory’s Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The project began by looking through 2 boxes of photographic prints dated 1890 -1919 of the North Polar Sequence and Harvard Standard Regions. Many of these celestial prints were dotted with exquisite handwritten marks - letters, numbers, symbols - by the Harvard Computers (a team of women astronomers), their coded inventories of the night sky. Choosing 7 photographs to work with, the hand-cut circles in each of the 8 resulting artworks represent the location of a Harvard Computer’s hand drawn notation.

STAR DATA is an homage to these pioneering women and to the importance and accessibility of the analog archive. The project is also a nod to the computer punch card -- a form of storage used in early 20th century data processing where information was held within punched out spaces.

-Victoria Burge