Human civilizations' longest lasting artifacts are not the great Pyramids of Giza, nor the cave paintings at Lascaux, but the communications satellites that circle our planet. In a stationary orbit above the equator, the satellites that broadcast our TV signals, route our phone calls, and process our credit card transactions experience no atmospheric drag. Their inert hulls will continue to drift around Earth until the Sun expands into a red giant and engulfs them about 4.5 billion years from now.
The Last Pictures, co-published by Creative Time Books, is rooted in the premise that these communications satellites will ultimately become the cultural and material ruins of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, far outlasting anything else humans have created. Inspired in part by ancient cave paintings, nuclear waste warning signs, and Carl Sagan's Golden Records of the 1970s, artist/geographer and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Trevor Paglen has developed a collection of one hundred images that will be etched onto an ultra-archival, golden silicon disc. The disc, commissioned by Creative Time, will then be sent into orbit onboard the Echostar XVI satellite in September 2012, as both a time capsule and a message to the future.
The selection of 100 images, which are the centerpiece of the book, was influenced by four years of interviews with leading scientists, philosophers, anthropologists, and artists about the contradictions that characterize contemporary civilizations. Consequently, The Last Pictures engages some of the most profound questions of the human experience, provoking discourse about communication, deep time, and the economic, environmental, and social uncertainties that define our historical moment.
Copub: Creative Time Books
This book chronicles a project intended to explain to someone¿at some point in the distant future, long after the traces of human civilization have disappeared¿what happened to the people who built the derelict spacecraft. Artist/geographer Trevor Paglen spent four years interviewing scientists, philosophers, anthropologists, and artists about the profound contradictions that characterize contemporary civilizations. He collected 100 images inspired by questions about how we conceive of life. These images, which are the centerpiece of the book, will be etched onto an ultra-archival silicon disc nested inside a golden shell and put into orbit onboard the EchoStar 16 satellite in summer 2012. Interspersed with short texts by people who contributed images, ideas, and critical questions to the project, The Last Pictures is a book about perception, communication, deep time, and the economic, environmental and political uncertainties that characterize our historical moment.
"The images are wondrous, paradoxical, and awe-inspiring."
