Audio Collage: Reaching Out
An audio collage inspired by (and containing) audio samples from the record we sent into space on the Voyager spacecraft. Contains sounds of Earth and some music. Of the two music pieces, the Chinese one (a 2500 year-old piece called Flowing Streams) was among the pieces that went into space. The sound samples are all from the original record, only replaced in a couple cases when the originals were too lo-fi.
The ‘journey’ is about all our impulse to reach out for knowledge, connection, and meaning, and starts with sounds related to that; next we move through the Chinese be here now vibe of Flowing Streams; finally we hear a modern musical rendering of Ps 139, a rediscovery of the inverse value of God’s project, where we are visited before we ever make a move.
The Morse Code spells out per aspera ad astra. It may be translated as, “through hardships to the heavens.”
Music
“Liu Shui” 《流水》 (“Flowing Streams”). Composed by Bo Ya, played by Kuan P’ing-hu.
Psalm 139:15-16, by Rivers & Robots, from The Verses Project
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them
Reaching Out
(High quality encoding available on request)