// new media class


Merani Schilcher — Union = Power

Carte Blanche — Winter 2018

Our solar system is currently host to the first interstellar object ever detected - unfortunately it’s already way out of our reach, no longer observable with the technology we have. But what we do know is that it behaved oddly once it neared the sun. Chief astronomer of Harvard Dr. Avi Loeb firmly believes that this might actually not just be a rock floating in space. What if it is of artificial origin? Could it be a broken off light sail of a spaceship that set out on a mission millions of years ago, now nothing more than a tumbling fossil? Or could it still hold intelligence and tried to reach out to us? I am approaching the scenario that ‘Oumuamua, our visitor from far away, has the ability to receive messages and decode them, that it does actually host sentient life.

“Union = Power” is another approach in a long line of attempts at reaching out to new life forms in outer space, all of them seemingly aimless, but for once, we might have an actual recipient. Laser beams are used for data transmission, while a solenoid grid displays a request for the formation of a union between Earth and the target in the form of already available symbols from the Yevpatoria messages from 1999 and 2003. After the initial setup of the system, meaning the guidebook that explains the utilization of the language and life on earth itself, the following message will be displayed as a beam tracks and points in the general direction of 'Oumuamua:

earth = people = thymidine adenosine cytidine guanosine (DNA)
earth = land + ocean
target = distance
target = undetermined
target + earth = union question
union = power
union = power
union = power

The object works in the extreme conditions of outer space and was never meant to stay on Earth.

Music: Filmy Ghost - Industry Echoes

Materials: acrylic glass, 5mW laser diodes, solenoids