The Aurora Borealis is a physical phenomenon produced by electrically charged sub-atomic particles emitted by the sun and sent soaring into the ionosphere by solar winds. The streaming particles are captured by the Earth's magnetic field and as they cascade down into the atmosphere they collide with gas molecules to produce the emission of radiation which glows in various colours. Auroras are otherwise known as the Northern and Southern Lights andare most frequently observed close to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. They are the subject of considerable scientific and cultural investigation.

The Aurora Project has brought together a range of specialists working within the arts and sciences. The project partners and contributors include artists interested in addressing mythological, aesthetic and cosmological readings of the aurora, scientific researchers measuring electro-magnetic frequencies and the social and psychological effects of spectacle, and computer scientists exploring how amorphous information is represented.

At its heart, The Aurora Project asks how we understand and contextualise phenomena and how creative responses can assist communication between different disciplines.

This website centres on the project as is has been developed by Nina Czegledy and Peter Ride since 2001, through funding from the Arts Council of England and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. In the development process the project has drawn on the prior activity of a number of different people who have become contributors. This website attempts to also place the current project in the work in the context of these other bodies of work.

This website documents how the Aurora Project has been developed by Nina Czegledy and Peter Ride since 2001, through funding from the Arts Council of England and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Throughout its process, the project has drawn considerably on the collected expertise and experience of all its contributors, and their prior productions, which are referred to on the site, or referred to by links. The ever expanding number of scientific and creative projects in this also provides an extremely important context for the Aurora Project, and these are indicated through the links provided in the 'Aurora Science' and 'Art Projects' sections.