Unfolding the Universe is created with support of Metaxu Studio Unfolding the Universe: A James Webb Space Telescope VR Experience. The work is created in commemoration of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and in coordination with the James Webb Space Telescope team.
In the months leading up to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope the world remained subject to COVID-19 restrictions. Maggie Masetti, the curator of “Unfolding the Universe: First Light”, worked with artist Ashley Zelinskie to design a Webb experience that could be experienced remotely by the public.
This was the genesis of Zelinskie’s first virtual reality artwork. This virtual installation includes 3D animated sculpture and interactive portraits of the James Webb Space Telescope scientists and engineers. Sound mapping technology is used to trigger interviews between the artist and the scientist upon confronting the interactive portrait. The work honors the extraordinary humans behind Webb and their decade-long stories of creating the telescope.
The operatic soundscape was produced in collaboration with sound conceptualist, composer, and performer JU-EH using ethereal sounds and a countdown to launch.
The award winning team at Metaxu.studio worked one-on-one with Zelinskie to produce James Webb-inspired digital architecture. The space combines a point cloud architectural exterior with gold hexagonal tile flooring, all situated in the vastness of space. The architecture features several wings surrounding a central atrium, allowing for intimate encounters with the Webb team portraits, and one wing was purpose built for hosting VR events with the Webb team members.
The VR space was launched along with Webb on Christmas Day 2021. For months thereafter Ashley, Maggie, and the Metaxu.studio team hosted virtual events with Webb Telescope scientists and engineers. The Webb team members gave virtual slide presentations as VR avatars and answered live questions from people all over the world.
The Mozilla Hubs platform proved ideal for hosting the VR world and events, as they can be experienced with or without a headset, require no prior experience in VR, and allow anyone with an internet connection to participate.

Ashley Zelinskie is Brooklyn-based conceptual artist utilizing a post-New Media approach, wherein the media employed are merely vehicles in service of underlying concepts, she is attempting the process of translating our vast history into an eternal and universal language, while focusing a lens on our place as a small part of a larger whole. Her works span a variety of media, from large- and small-scale sculpture to canvas and print works, each created using cutting edge technology such as 3D printing, computer-guided laser cutting, and satellite plating technology. Her work focuses on visualizing data in abstract forms and finding new and interesting ways to describe complex ideas.

Zelinskie’s work has been featured by The New York Times, Vice, Popular Science, and Hyperallergic. Her work forms part of the permanent collection of the US Department of State Art in Embassies Program, has been exhibited at Sotheby’s New York and most recently the ArtScience Museum in Singapore. Zelinskie is a former resident of New Inc.—the New Museum’s Art and Technology Incubator—and the Shapeways x Museum of Art and design “Out of Hand” exhibition residency. She is currently working in collaboration with NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Smithsonian and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.