Shattered Moon Alliance

Propelled by a mutual interest in sci-fi world-building and its potential for manifesting more sustainable ecological and community-oriented futures, SHATTERED MOON ALLIANCE has convened multiple collaborative and speculative sessions and exhibitions since 2017 that, taken together, constitute a living and growing transmedia publication. Through a focus on poetic and political potentials for time travel in its myriad possible forms, SHATTERED MOON ALLIANCE invites many other individuals to participate in their often intimate and deeply discursive exhibitions and events, engendering a ripple effect that actualizes the ever-widening circle of community they envision through their critical inquiries in the process. SHATTERED MOON ALLIANCE is Christina Battle (amiskwaciy-wâskahikan/Edmonton) and Serena Lee (Tkaronto/Toronto & Vienna).

In conversations on communication-at-a-distance leading up to this exhibition, we considered the quixotic nature of the 1977 Voyager Golden Record project led by the charismatic astrophysicist and science communicator, Carl Sagan. Known for his popularization of astronomy, cosmology, and questions focused on the origin of the universe and possibilities for extraterrestrial life, Sagan was in a unique position to convince NASA of the communications value of the project. Taking a year to complete, the Golden Record is an artifact and snapshot of its time, place, and the people who collectively made it. The final selection of 115 images, as well as a variety of planetary sounds, greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, and music from around the world (perhaps predictably a bit heavy on the Bach and Beethoven) can be accessed via NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website, with the greetings and Earth sounds uploaded to SoundCloud.

Bringing their own unique approach to such a process and challenge, Battle and Lee embarked on a parallel project. Reaching out to fellow artists, friends, colleagues, and collaborators, they invited sound-based contributions toward a collective work whose final official title compiles keywords from the submissions of sixteen intrepid respondents. In accepting and implementing all contributions as they were received, without further editing, the sum total of the resulting 42 minutes and 25 seconds of widely divergent audio clips represents one highly organic soundtrack of unvarnished crowdsourced construction, governed by equal parts chance, creativity, chaos, and current affairs. Acknowledging that such an edifice might not stand up to any committees as a work of functional communication, the artists humorously bestowed upon the compilation the unofficial title of "not quite the Golden Record."

However, this also speaks to the great variance in what is to be considered functional in terms of communication, and even the different ways the words 'functional' or 'communication' might mean depending on scope or position. Considering the experiences of the participants in contributing to the project, what might the project's communicative value look like then? Or the experiences of visitors to its web-based presentation, who will encounter a seemingly random assortment of sounds within the context of an exhibition with a stated interest in advancing communication with both criticality and care? And finally, as an artifact and snapshot of its time, what might this particular record convey toward an unknown, but perhaps not-so-distant viewer and future?

The original form of this work was conceived to take shape as a site-responsive installation in a wedge-shaped utility room within an unfinished arts building in Toronto. In response to the project's re-visioning within a digital context, the artists have transfigured its intended material elements, such as die-cut lettering, convex security mirrors, live plants, and grow lights, into a series of sixteen experimental videos that playfully pay homage to the sound-based creations, to maximal and hallucinatory effect.

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