Very similarly, Tweets in Space by Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern collected twitter messages from a 30 minutes performance at ISEA 2012 identified with #tweetsinspace tag. later on, these messages were beamed towards GJ667Cc, an exoplanet that might (or not) support extraterrestrial life. In 30 minutes, Kildall and Stern collected 1500 tweets (1 per second). They then transmitted them on 28 nov 2012
It is interesting how looking for other forms of being has been a recurrent human obsession. I am reminded of Virilio who interpreted pushing further and further the horizon of the unseen and the unknown as a quest for knowing and of “conquering”. Is this another way to establish our presence outside of this world?
Tweets in Space from Scott Kildall on Vimeo.
Kildall and Stern point out that one of the rationale beyond the project was also to repurpose social media. why just keep them among ourselves? We often trust selected institutions to make decisions for us, but social media might reproduce many of our cultural assumptions, fears and habits way better than those refined images and artifacts that are periodically sent into outerspace to communicate our “greatness” to other forms of life.
But then how would these messages interpreted by extraterrestrial life?