 |
|||
 |
   |
||
 |
|||
|
Nowhere Plains (2005)
|
|||
|
"At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there... I have been in some of them, and- well we won't talk about that. But there was one yet- the biggest, the most blank, so to speak- that I had a hankering after." Joseph Conrad, 'Heart of Darkness', 1902. Nowhere Plains is a literal translation of the Latin name Utopia Planitia, which was the site of the Viking 2 probe’s landing on Mars in 1976. Utopia was chosen by NASA firstly because it was an enormous and relatively easy target, and secondly because it was considered safe and flat. Nowhere Plains explores the value of “boring” places with “nothing” in them, of which Utopia Planitia is an almost unimaginably vast example. You can see Utopia Planitia and visually explore the rest of the planet on Google Mars. The original, primary meaning of the word utopia (as coined by Sir Thomas More in his eponymous book about an ideal society: see bibliography) is literally “no place”; a place that does not and cannot exist in reality. Utopia has since come to imply a more attainable and concrete state of perfection; the progressive or radical utopia is usually in the future, while conservatives often mourn an idealised historical utopia of decades or centuries past. The idea of visiting and colonising other planets is utopian in both the old and new, right wing and left wing senses of the word. A video installation of all four episodes was in the exhibition Broadcast Yourself at Cornerhouse in Manchester from 13th June-10th August, 2008. The same exhibition was previously at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle during March of 2008. The exhibition looked at twentieth century and contemporary artists' work on, in and about television, and in Newcastle was part of AV Festival 08 which took place across Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesborough and Sunderland. There's also a site dedicated to the exhibition: Broadcast Yourself. Below: Map of Mars in English by Alistair Gentry.
This was a utopian journey to Nowhere, culminating in me being the first human being to land on Mars, broadcast live from Utopia. It was not a recreation or a hoax; in Nowhere Plains the romance and imagined drama of a journey through space are contrasted with the prosaic reality and everyday beauty of the often rather bleak, problematic views that have rewarded explorers or pioneers throughout history— views that have often cost many lives. Environmental and social devastation has often followed for the new lands discovered and for any "aliens" already living there. Even the most idealistic thinkers have tended to realise that their perfect worlds would need to be protected from the outside world by lucky circumstances, by internal coercion and/or external ignorance if they were to survive. Hence utopias have tended to move ever further away as the sphere of (Western) human knowledge expands. I also discuss utopianism in my article for MAP magazine on genomics and art, written during my residency at the University of Edinburgh. (Below, from left) Top row, stills from webcasts of TX 1: 'Laika' in the cockpit and TX 2: 'Nowhere' in the centrifuge. Bottom row, stills from TX 3 'Fear and Terror' EVA and TX 4: 'Utopia' on Mars. |
|||
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
||
(Left) Installation view at Cornerhouse, Manchester, 2008. Note the old school Sony monitors. I requested them specifically and was very pleased with them despite/because of their glitches, dodgy connectors, user-hostile interfaces and so forth. They're built like a tank, but weigh only about half as much as a tank. These used to be standard issue for art galleries showing video. Now it's all video projectors or plasma screens and seemingly overnight the poor old Sonys have become quite rare...
The UNSA-BERG mission to Utopia Planitia was sponsored by the Radiator Festival for New Technology Art in Nottingham. It was streamed lived from Radiator's site to the internet, and to large screens at Castle Green (the city's highest point) and Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, to Phoenix in Leicester and to Q Arts in Derby. You can read more about the background and production of 'Nowhere Plains' here. |
|||
| HOME - VIDEO - INSTALLATION - PHOTOGRAPHY - FICTION - INFORMATION MORE 'NOWHERE PLAINS': PRODUCTION/BACKGROUND |
|||
