The Last Pictures launches with EchoStar XVI satellite
November 19, 2012
The Last Pictures, by Trevor Paglen, Creative Time)
On November 20, Creative Time will launch an archival disc created by artist Trevor Paglen called The Last Pictures into outer space from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Made of ultra-archival materials, the disc is expected to orbit the earth for billions of years affixed to the exterior of the communications satellite EchoStar XVI.
To create the artifact, Paglen micro-etched one hundred photographs selected to represent modern human history onto a silicon disc encased in a gold-plated shell that was designed at MIT and Carleton College. As a cultural artifact of our time, The Last Pictures is both a message to the future and a poetic meditation on the legacy of our civilization.
Comments (6)
by Name of Ed
I second Aiswels comment. What on earth is the point? Seems like the highest-tech equivilent to a vanity-press to me. A vanity-press with heavy-duty marketing, perhaps, but a vanity-press nonetheless. Something no one will ever read, the single copy of which will end up becoming mere clutter. And billions of years? What, is it going to be orbiting at a Legrange point or something? No offence meant to anyone who thinks this is really cool (I understand the cool factor here, I’m just not feeling it) but me calls sillyness on this one.
by Thomas Mazanec
Will micrometeoroids erode the disk, if it is on the outside?
by G Money
i wrote my previous comment before i watched the video. after watching it i’d like to add—–send more blind willie johnson!!
by G Money
send more chuck berry
by asiwel
I really don’t understand this article. What is the point or significance of this “Last Pictures” CD attached to some communications satellite? And the very idea of of some space object orbiting “for billions of years” is ridiculous – unless we are thinking of something like the moon. Sure, it might orbit a long time if properly placed and nothing else happens. But it is more likely to become just another piece of space debris to police up in the next 10 or 20 years.
by bc
Lighten up!