The Golden Record
We asked you to tell us what you’d put on a new Golden Record. Here’s what you chose.
Ever thought about what you’d put on the Voyager golden record? Well, what are you waiting for? Your website can be your time capsule.
The Last Pictures: Contemporary pessimism and hope for the future by Paul Glister
From the cave paintings at Lascaux to the Pioneer plaques and Voyager golden records to Trevor Paglen’s “The Last Pictures” project, Paul Glister examines the passage and preservation of art and information through time. Fascinating.
Or perhaps, as Paglen envisions, those who find a Pioneer Plaque, a Voyager Record, or one of our electromagnetic transmissions will be interested enough to search us out, coming upon a future Earth where all that is left of humanity are our terrestrial ruins and that artificial ring of geosynchronous satellites, with one of them having a particular golden artifact bolted to its pitted hull. In that scenario, about all that would be left for the visiting ETI to do in terms of learning about us would be grand-scale dumpster diving.