orbital shopping
- Louise Charlier
Orbital Shopping by Louise Charlier is a space home-shopping broadcast on the fictional television channel “Roscosmic TV”. In the show, a 3D presenter demonstrates products designed for life in orbit — such as the ZeroDust 3000, a gravitational dust vacuum, or the GravitySlim™ belt, which restores a terrestrial posture in weightlessness. Drawing on the familiar codes of classic home shopping, the video stages products that are at once futuristic and oddly familiar.
This setup offers a critique of the contemporary imagination surrounding space exploration — one shaped by capitalist logic that projects into space the very same models of consumption and standardisation found on Earth. By pairing a science-fictional aesthetic with a television format widely perceived as outdated, the project highlights the constructed and ideological nature of our collective vision of the future.
It seems, then, that nothing extraordinary awaits us in orbit — only a weightless replica of the world we already know.
Technical support by Ohme Lab
This project is a collaboration between artist Louise Charlier and Ohme Lab on finetuning the technical aspects of her project during the Sidekick 2026 residency.
Louise collaborated with Ohme Lab for the design and prototyping of the hypothetical objects to appear in her tele-shopping series. Together, they first defined the concept behind each object and started drawing their plans with pen and paper. Next, they translated her view in technical terms, drawing the actual plans of the objects themselves in 3D, and integrating the necessary electronics. The electronics parts are crucial to the objects, as they will provide a « lively » effect on the sculptural elements.
The Lab produced the prototypes of the GravitySlim and the black hole kitchen element [final name tbd], integrating motors, magnets and ferrofluids to produce a black hole effect on the latter. Louise will use the prototypes to complete their design, and use Ohme Lab’s 3D printer, for which she received the support of the Lab and learned additive manufacturing from the grounds up with the supervision of the Lab.
About Sidekick
Sidekick is an art-science residency programme coordinated by Ohme Lab, Ohme’s research and development department. Open to artists and cultural practitioners from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, it supports projects at the intersection of the arts and applied sciences, across three categories: EDUCATE, SENSE and PERFORM. Each selected project receives 10 days of technical and scientific consultancy from Ohme Lab’s engineers, complemented by an artistic grant and a prototyping budget.
Orbital Shopping was selected in the SENSE category.
Created by
Louise Charlier
Louise Charlier (1996) is a Belgian artist and researcher.Louise Charlier (1996) is a Belgian artist and researcher. Having completed a master's degree in the drawing studio at ENSAV La Cambre in 2019, she pursues both plastic and theoretical research into the imaginary of the cosmos. In 2022, she received a research grant from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS-FRESH) and began a doctorate in art and art sciences (ULB – La Cambre). Her installations seek to rethink the relationships between Earth and space through the creation of futuristic speculative narratives.
Since 2022, she has collaborated with several scientific research groups, including the European Space Agency and the physics department of the University of Porto. In 2025, Louise Charlier participated in the digital art biennial "En Commun" (Paris) and in the exhibition "Là où le ciel tremble" at Kommet Lieu d'art Contemporain (Lyon).
Credits
Concept & development: Louise Charlier
Technical Support: Ohme Lab (Raoul Raoul Sommeillier & Anthony Antoun)
