Image above: “Terrestrial Planet Sizes. The terrestrial planets are the four innermost planets in the solar system; Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. This diagram shows the approximate relative sizes of the terrestrial planets. Distances are not to scale. Image Credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute.”

The following text was taken from a Guardian article on recently proposed private mission to MARS. Something deep inside me was tickled at reading the entire article, and especially the text below. I love the immense scales being discussed, the unfathomable loneliness and the inevitable, critical, psychological strain illustrated. HAVE A READ

“Besides the physiological response to spacefaring, there are serious psychological challenges to consider. Iya Whiteley, deputy director of the Centre for Space Medicine at UCL, worked with the European Space Agency on the recent Mars500 simulated mission to the planet. “We’ve uncovered more than 2,000 potential issues for long duration missions, in terms of psychological, relationships and organisational issues; how they deal with superiors, their family, what kind of support they might need and what countermeasures might help them. Of those there are only a quarter we have some idea about,” says Whiteley.

Her work with the European Space Agency exposed changes in behaviour that have cropped up before on space missions. There is the “third quarter effect”, where motivation slumps mid-way through the long journey home. There is the “pale blue dot effect”, where people experience a shift in perspective and priorities, linked with their remoteness from the world and separation from the trivialities of everyday life. As the astronauts move away from Earth, they may lose touch even more.

…

What if the ship is lost, either by shooting past Mars, or impacting on its surface, as has happened with scores of Mars probes in past decades? Would that set back future international missions to the planet?

On this, Whiteley raises the unthinkable, even though I’m sure she’s not serious. “It’s strange to consider whether people might not want to come back,” she says. “Maybe they have a plan to be the first people to disappear into space.” “

musarc’s loaded dictaphones: key apparatus for corpus sonus. photography by chryssa panoussiadou 

i sang bass in this recording of musarc’s performance, in margate’s turner contemporary, 20th april 2012. recorded by joseph kohlmier.

musarc choir encompassing our conductor, cathy heller jones, while we practise and perform. turner contemporary gallery, margate. photography by chryssa panoussiadou

the first part is musarc singing in a large gallery space, standing in a circle, facing inward with audience scattered around us, their backs the the wall. our conductor, cathy heller jones, instructs us to synchronise record on the dictaphones.

a dictaphone silhouette traces musarc’s first position for the performance. photography by chryssa panoussiadou

the second part of the performance begins when we stop singing and stop recording, rewind, press play, set the dictaphone at our feet and disperse into the audience. we assumed pseudo-formal poses while we, along with the audience, listened back to the tapes. the out-of-sync tapes satanic or at least darkly-heavenly tone. the performance ends when the last tape reaches the end.

the score for corpus sonus, by joseph kohlmier


corpus sonus is a revisited version of william byrd‘s ave verum corpus. the original concept of this revisit was introduced by the talented sam belinfonte with contributions from Original idea by Sam Belinfante with contributions from Toby O’Connor, Cathy Heller Jones, Maria Smith, John Bingham-Hall, Esther Waterfield, Joseph Kohlmaier, Hannes Voss, Mela Boev and the ensemble. musarc performed this new commission at margate’s turner contemporary gallery, on occasion of the gallery’s first birthday.

www.musarc.org

above : “The high speed flash head was tested for 700 shots, one every 5 seconds, to detect irregularities in Flash power and light characteristics” from vimeo page description of the fascinating digital mediators factum arte