SETI AIR Newsletter July 2023
This month, we take a closer look at the work of Xin Liu, who is participating in three exhibitions this summer, including one solo show. Her work weaves narratives of space exploration into her personal, lived experiences and focuses on technology’s relationship with the human body. Take a deep dive into her captivating work exploring medical innovations such as cryonics and egg freezing.
We also have an update on the Daniela de Paulis project, A Sign in Space. We are getting closer to interpreting the simulated alien message that was sent to Earth in May! Or are we…? Join the project’s Discord and contribute your ideas.
Wishing you clear skies,
Bettina
Artists Highlights
Xin Liu
Artist, curator, and engineer Xin Liu creates artifacts and experiences that explore the tension between the personal, social and technological aspects of space exploration. Xin is having a busy summer, presenting her work in three exhibitions.
Her solo show Seedlings and Offsprings at Pioneer Works in New York explores themes such as space travel, vitality, mutation, and immortality. Says the artist:
“In Seedlings and Offsprings, I have created a series of mixed-media sculptures inspired by biological and medical innovations such as cryonics and egg freezing, each designed to interfere with natural life cycles.
Since last year, I have been battling with the thought that my female body inhabits the humanity’s innate desire to sustain and to perpetuate its species.
A vessel, a mother. Yet our reproductive organs are subject to societal constraints on women’s abilities to produce, to reproduce.
Labor as a worker, a person with her own desires.
Labor as a woman, a woman to love and give.
As a technology to extend our reproductive window, I am fearful of this implication on time being only worth passing while it’s useful, while we are producing.”
Seedlings and Offsprings runs from July 7 - September 10, 2023 at Pioneer Works https://pioneerworks.org/exhibitions/xin-liu-seedlings-and-offsprings
Xin’s exhibition At the End of Everything at San Antonio’s Artspace delves into the nature of oil as an assertive, almost sentient resource, connecting to petroleum exploitation in her hometown of Karamay, Xinjiang, China. The exhibition runs from July 13 - September 10, 2023.
Her video work The White Stone is featured in the 4th Future of Today Biennial: To Your Eternity at Today Art Museum, in Beijing, China. Visit the Biennial from July 23 - October 15, 2023.
https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/546007/to-your-eternity/
Daniela DePaulis: A Sign in Space
The decoding process of the simulated extraterrestrial message received on 24 May 2023 is still ongoing. Designed by Daniela de Paulis and a team of advisors, the message was transmitted by the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter currently orbiting Mars. Since its reception, an active community on Discord has been making progress.
Says the artist:
“After the first week, a team of decoders including BatchDrake, HaileyStorm, and others managed to extract the message from the radio signal through a process of knowledge sharing. The message looks something like this image (decoded image). At this stage, the Discord community is faced with the challenge of further decoding and interpreting the message. … Technical and mathematical hypothesis [are] merging with philosophical, creative ideas and humour, especially when rational thinking fails to deliver a coherent answer. … The interpretation-chat and the sub-threads on Discord have been producing countless meanings around the simulated extraterrestrial message.”
Want to join the decoding effort? Join the A Sign in Space Discord here:
https://discord.com/channels/1066055437457297469/1111404329694400542
Daniela is presenting A Sign in Space at the Electronic Literature conference in Coimbra, Portugal
https://ucpages.uc.pt/en/events/overcoming-divides-electronic-literature-and-social-change/
Watch SETI AIR
Xenology, Alienness, and Trans Futures
A conversation with Adriana Knouf
How can space travel be made accessible to all? Should we transform astronauts instead of terraforming? Watch the inspiring and thought-provoking SETI Live conversation with Adriana Knouf and Bettina Forget
https://www.youtube.com/live/qgZQEv7S4Cg
SETI AIR Artists News and Events
Daedelus
Xenopocene album launch
Dome of Doom Records
August 4th, 2023
Digital + Vinyl
Lead Single: Concerning The Conduct of The Search - Out July 12th
Second Single: Starfire (feat. R.A.P. Ferreira) - Out July 26th
Mark your calendars for a SETI Live with Daedelus to celebrate their album launch on September 17, 2023.
Daniela de Paulis
The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space
Daniela de Paulis: Mare Incognito: Live Performance Art Linking Sleep with the Cosmos through Radio Waves