Since 1963, more than 800 spacecraft have been
launched into geosynchronous orbit, forming a man-made ring of
satellites around the Earth, and will now include "The Last Pictures" as
mankind's legacy once life has disappeared from the planet.
An organization called Creative Time,
unites creative artists and people, and has come up with a new project,
called The Last Pictures, which they say will be a message from
humanity to alien civilizations. They plan to record the history of the
human race in pictures, and to then send this data into space for these
future civilizations to view.
The project is the brainchild of multimedia artist, Trevor Paglen, who
wishes to make one of the satellites orbiting the earth into a carrier
of a visual record of life on Earth, focusing on the “contemporary
historical moment.”
In developing the project,
Paglen has been in touch with various experts to develop a concept of
how to construct the cultural snapshot. Collaborating with artists,
scientists and anthropologists, he eventually decided that the record
must contain visual content.
This content will feature a total of 100
pictures, including works of art, natural phenomena, architecture and a
detailed map of earth, and will be carried by the satellite in the form
of a disk.
The project's website
says that the disk is unique, as the materials used were developed to
last for eternity. "Together with materials scientists at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Paglen developed an artifact designed to last
billions of years - an ultra-archival disc, micro-etched with one
hundred photographs and encased in a gold-plated shell.”
The
launch of this historical disk into Earth's orbit is set to happen this
autumn, and it will travel aboard communications satellite, EchoStar
XVI, mounted to its anti-earth deck.
The pictures can be viewed here.
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