«A Golden Record is a time capsule into their future, a scrap of cave painting from the early 2020s. How fortunate that future humans – unlike us animals – will never meet us.» Daniel Falb, poet
Daniel Falb is a poet, philosopher and theorist of the Anthropocene. This combination makes him an ideal guest for our GOLDEN RECORD STUDIOS. He brought along a text on the subject, which he read in our studios. So we were able to sit back and relax and decided to hold several of these sessions, to which we invite authors who can bring along a literary text and put it on the Golden Record. The bestseller list for the spaced-out, so to speak. Daniel Falb is making the start. He most recently published Mystique der Weltbevölkerung (Merve 2022) Deutschland. Ein Weltmärchen (in easy language) (kookbooks 2023).
This conversation was held in German.
Further links to topics of the dialogue
Rare-Earth-Hypothese (wiki)
Tom Westby und Christopher J. Conselice – The Astrobiological Copernican Weak and Strong Limits for Intelligent Life (article)
Meghan Bartels – Scientists’ Predictions for the Long-Term Future of the Voyager Golden Records Will Blow Your Mind (article)
Links to streaming platforms
Welcome to THE GOLDEN RECORD STUDIOS – It’s high time for a new world selfie! 45 years ago, NASA sent its «Golden Records» into the depths of space in the hope that distant intelligences would be able to get an idea of humanity this way. Back then, a small group of Americans curated an embellished selfie for the entire Earth: Photos as if with a retro filter, music between European classical music and Azerbaijani bagpipes, as well as nature sounds in poor sound quality – our as yet unknown alien friends will get a pretty weird impression of us. Fortunately, since the 1970s, not only the view of the world, but also the view out of the world has changed significantly.
In our podcast series THE GOLDEN RECORD STUDIOS, exosociologists, anthropologists and other alien artists put their heads together with us for this experiment to produce new recordings: How do we want to be remembered? How do we welcome alien intelligences? Which colonial structures do we have to say goodbye to in order to secure the existence of the human species? And is freezing after death really the smartest way to travel into the future? THE GOLDEN RECORD STUDIOS are an open invitation to listen in and think along, infused with sounds and music. On the first level, we deal with various questions arising from the Golden Records project. But you soon realise that we are dealing with very contemporary and local issues via the figure of the alien or the message to space.
Hosts: Alexandra Lauck und Lukas Matthaei
Creative Producer: Fabian Kuehlein
Music: Chris Umney
Produced by matthaei&konsorten 2023