Sunday Salon 38

The curatorial and editorial project for systems, non-objective and reductive artists working in the UK

Tower No 1a (Looks Like A Good Trajectory So Far)

Robert Good | Saturation Point Sunday Salon #38

January 2026

Saturation Point, London | January 2026

Robert Good Tower No 1a

Tower No 1A (Looks Like A Good Trajectory So Far) began as a project proposal for an exhibition on the Astralist painter Claudio del Sole at Bobinska Brownlee New River gallery in 2025. As such it continues my interest in the astronomical sublime - that feeling that makes us go ‘wow’ when we look up at the night sky or see the latest pictures from the Hubble telescope - something that I have previously grappled with in work such as How To Know The Starry Heavens and during residences at the Allenheads Observatory in Northumberland.

The tower is inspired by the iconic launch gantry at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A from which Apollo 11 blasted off to the moon. The title quote is taken from the CBS News commentary at about 1:05 minutes into the flight, and reflects the optimism and excitement of the launch.

Tower No 1A (Looks Like A Good Trajectory So Far) therefore may be read as a celebration of the achievements of humankind and a contemplation of the astronomical sublime and the possibilities for future exploration of our celestial surroundings - aspirations that continue to this day with the International Space Station, the James Webb Telescope and plans for a return to the moon and a manned trip to Mars. Or perhaps the empty launchpad stands as a monument to our hubris, a technological Tower of Babel so to speak where our desire to reach the stars blinds us to our inability to take good care of Planet Earth, our only home.

But the origins of this project also go back much further, to my visit to the USA In Search of Silicon Valley in 2022 (kindly supported by Arts Council England), where I was trying to get a handle on the impact that new technology is having on us. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg was promising that very soon we’d all be spending our time in the metaverse, which seemed to me like an incredibly bad idea. By complete chance, the Flamingo Motel where I was staying (it was cheap and had a fabulous pink neon flamingo outside) was almost directly opposite an artist community called The School of Visual Philosophy. And in a further wonderful coincidence, they were holding an open day that very weekend. So I went along, and found all manner of hands-on craftiness, from metalwork to letterpress to jewellery and sign painting. This was the missing piece of the jigsaw that I had been looking for: the antidote to disembodied headsets and screen addiction is simple - just make stuff. (Yes, I went all the way to Silicon Valley to find that out.)

Since then I have been looking to find ways to increase the amount of making and constructing in my work, as a necessary part of my investigations into the digital landscape. Tower No 1A (Looks Like A Good Trajectory So Far) therefore also has its roots in a desire to step away from the screen, excise the digital, and to return to making. It is an act of rebellion against the technoverse.

Credits

Photos: Andy Keate

Audio: NASA

Sound and lighting: James Good and Mel Good

Particular thanks to Patrick Morrissey and Hanz Hancock at Saturation Point

Robert Good is an artist based in Cambridge, UK whose work explores the impact of technology on our lives, with a particular interest in the migration of knowledge from analogue to digital, books to bytes. His work frequently uses Python code hosted on Raspberry Pis.

www.robertgood.co.uk