Group show
1 August - 13 September 2008
'The Golden Record' was a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977. It contained sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It was intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. For this exhibition comedians, artists and filmmakers came together in a unique cross-platform/cross-festival project at the Edinburgh Art and Fringe Festivals to create a contemporary remake.
One
hundred and sixteen ‘images of Earth’ were compiled for 'The Golden
Record' by Carl Sagan and his team of NASA scientists; one hundred and
sixteen artists produced a work to correspond to a title assigned from
the list. In addition, a series of short video works were commissioned
for the gallery exhibition to replace the original fifty-five greetings
in different languages. Further to this, the exhibition also showed a
documentary charting the history of intergalactic communication,
focusing on the creator of the original record, maverick astrophysicist
Carl Sagan and his wife, pop sensation and Earth Ambassador for World
Contact Day, Karen Carpenter.