ROCKETWORKS: X11

a multimedia installation that combined archival audio from the Apollo 11 mission, stop-motion video, works on paper, and mixed-media sculpture, to explore risk, reward, aggression, & play while celebrating this complex human achievement.

HILO GALLERY, Catskill, New York

July 16 - 24, 2019

 

rocketstar #3, bottle rockets, fuse, styrofoam, 24 x 24 inches

SCHEDULED UNSCHEDULED TV TRANSMISSIONS

Along with Scheduled TV Transmissions, like the lunar landing and moon walk, Apollo 11 astronauts randomly broadcast eight unscheduled transmissions during their trip. Each was broadcast in the installation as they occurred in the original timeline to the moon.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight to the moon and back in 1969, rocketworks: X11 featured an eight-day long sound piece that began with launch on July 16th at 9:32 am EDT. The transmission ran continuously until splashdown on July 24th, at 12:50pm EDT. Audible at listening stations in the space and accessible online through a stream made possible in partnership with Wave Farm (wavefarm.org), the piece, called X11,  used archival audio of NASA’s communications between earth and the moon-bound Apollo 11 astronauts to mirror the historic trip in real time. Selected content was broadcast on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM in New York's Upper Hudson Valley.

Using a photocopier and a two-inch toy rocket enacting ten stages in the launch sequence of a Saturn V rocket, each of the ten stages are paired with a hand-typed copy of the launch transcript page from each of the ten Apollo Program missions.

Beginning as identical synchronized archival footage of Apollo 11's launch to the moon, 'go up or blow up' uses a split screen to reveal the three possible outcomes of any given launch, highlighting the risks and rewards of rocket travel.

This loop animates fifty launches through ten crucial stages, from lift-off to near-orbit, with bit of all Apollo mission launch audio. Used components of the rocket are jettisoned, falling away as planned, and each launch marks a success in the annals of rocket travel. Referencing the percentage of launch/reentry attempts that have killed their crew, 2% of the animated launches will fail, and the loop will not repeat. Eighteen seconds of darkness begin (a second for every space traveller killed during spaceflight) and eventually the launches resume. As the launches return to their former frequency, the specter of the 2% probability returns.