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- Joe Davis
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- Lu Olkowski
In 1977 NASA launched the Voyager Interstellar Record Project. The project's mission was to launch a collection of music and images into deep space, to help introduce humans to alien civilizations.
Joe Davis, artist-in-residence at MIT's Biology Department, questioned NASA's judgement and created several pieces of art in response to the Voyager project.
Originally aired on Studio 360 January 12, 2002.
(This was the first radio piece I ever produced, so it has sentimental value. A big thank you to Peter Clowney.)
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Piece Description
In 1977 NASA launched the Voyager Interstellar Record Project. The project's mission was to launch a collection of music and images into deep space, to help introduce humans to alien civilizations. Joe Davis, artist-in-residence at MIT's Biology Department, questioned NASA's judgement and created several pieces of art in response to the Voyager project. Originally aired on Studio 360 January 12, 2002. (This was the first radio piece I ever produced, so it has sentimental value. A big thank you to Peter Clowney.)
Broadcast History
Originally aired on Studio 360 January 12, 2002.
Transcript
Joe Davis' ideas involve E.coli, electron guns, DNA and beat-up pieces of satellite recovered from space.
By the sound of that toolkit, you might think we're about to talk with a biologist or maybe an astrophysicist, and yet
JD: I have no classical credentials in science whatsoever. I mean I took biology in Jr. college. I'm not a scientist, I'm an artist, very clearly, although there's a lot of argument about that too.
And when Joe Davis starts telling you about his work, it's easy to see how he causes argument - like, with one of his more ambitious projects, Poetica Vaginal...
JD: It was, project to transmit vaginal contractions into space to communicate with aliens. Wasn't really about transmitting vaginal contractions into space to communicate with aliens, was about transmitting vaginal contractions into space to communicate with ourselves...
Joe arrived at MIT on...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
I left a bit of music at the tail of the piece, so individual stations can fade to fit.
00:00:00 Opening Music (0:02)
00:00:02 Body of Piece (6:14)
00:06:16 Closing Music (0:12)
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