Stargazer Katie Paterson at Haunch of Venison

As the first artist in residence of the Physics & Astronomy department at University College London, Katie Paterson has access to a number of highly complex pieces of machinery that can be used to examine, record and photograph celestial happenings. Indeed, one of her projects is creating a photo archive of the universe's 3.7-billion-year history.

However, the London and Berlin-based artist's most lauded works explore the astral through the everyday. "I like the idea of flattening this limitless, unknowable space into something as outdated as a family slide show," Patterson has said. Her 2010 work As The World Turns comprises a record player that rotates in sync with the earth - one revolution every 24 hours, playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and the sentimental The Dying Star Letters (2010) is made up of collection hand-written letters Paterson writes upon being informed by her scientist contacts that somewhere in the universe a star has died.

Katie Paterson, 100 Billion Suns (Sestiere Giudecca) (2011), Digital Lambda Print, photo by Katie Paterson

At the 2011 Venice Biennale, Paterson presented 100 Billion Suns - timed bursts of paper confetti that exploded at regular intervals around unspecified areas of the city, representing a history of gamma ray bursts, which burn 100 billion times brighter than the sun. Haunch of Venison's new London space opens in Fitzrovia this week with the first UK presentation of this work. Photographs of the original Venice work will be shown alongside more confetti cannons that will be fired daily at 1:00 pm for the duration of the exhibition.

Paterson's Dying Star Letters will also be show, as will her 2009 piece Ancient Darkness TV, for which the artist worked with astronomers at the Keck Observatory, Mauna Kea to record darkness at the furthest point of the observed universe 13.2 billion years ago. This 'ancient darkness' was then broadcast to a New York television station. The footage will be played on a continual loop at the Haunch of Venison show.

100 Billions Suns: a short film with Katie Paterson from Haunch of Venison.