Moonage daydream

Associated media

Ahead of possible lunar colonization and exploitation, Frances Follin took an imaginative trip into space to visit the ‘Republic of the Moon’

A thought-provoking and really rather enchanting exhibition currently on view at the Bargehouse, in the shadow of the Southbank’s Oxo Tower, pursues humankind’s ancient fascination with the moon. The Bargehouse itself, a rundown and neglected building, has a somewhat labyrinthine character –if you can envisage a vertical labyrinth – with only fairly small exhibition spaces on each floor. Appropriately, therefore, one constantly ascends as one progresses through the exhibits, getting a tiny bit closer to the moon itself as one goes up.

For the first exhibit, after entering the building, one passes through a heavy curtain into a dark space to encounter the ‘heroine’ of the event – the moon. Its image is projected onto the floor and on its surface can be seen part of the word ‘SHE’, while the darkness is filled with voices repeating the word softly and at varying tempos. This is Liliane Lijn’smoonmeme, a real-time animation that shows the moon turning so that through the month more of it will be seen and, when it is full, the whole hemisphere will be revealed – with the whole word. On the opening night only the ‘HE’ part of the word was visible. As the moon projection turns over the month, HE will be revealed as arising from SHE and vice versa. Lijn says of the work that ‘The slow, monthly transformation of meaning will lead the viewer to an epiphany of the conjunction of opposites’. The accompanying vocalizations produce a meditative, appropriately other-worldly ambience.

Lijn has worked with scientists since 1996 to develop this project and would have liked to project ‘SHE’ onto the actual surface of the moon. This is fraught with technical difficulties and would actually be difficult to see from Earth without binoculars or a telescope. Apparently, on hearing of Lijn’s efforts, several large companies thought it would be a good idea to project their logos on to the moon. The longer this stays impossible, the better!

Various cultures through history have seen the moon as female. In the room beyond, a pair of headphones hang from a hook on the wall. Don’t miss them. Put them on and listen to Pliny’s account of moon-related superstitions, to what the Talmud has to say on the subject, and finally to an excerpt of Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. A display case has texts about the project, and a cover of the art/science journal Leonardo, showing a full-moon moonmeme.

Going up to the next floor, one encounters Katie Paterson’s Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon) (2007). Paterson had Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata converted to Morse code, directed at the moon’s surface in the form of radio frequency electromagnetic energy (EME) and reflected back to Earth. The unevenness of the moon’s surface fragmented the reflection so that some of the original signal was lost and the code reflected back was therefore different from the original. A self-playing piano plays the results, which still sounded musically coherent and rather pretty.

In another project, Second Moon, Paterson has sent a piece of moon rock round the Earth via UPS courier. It is travelling at twice the speed of the real moon – an app is available for those who want to track its progress. A small screen on the wall shows its current position relative to Earth.

Up again, and we find Leonid Tishkov’s Private Moon, a series of photographs of a man with his own moon – or rather quarter moon, brightly shining and, it would seem, almost as large as he is. Tishkov extends the notion that the moon provides ‘company’ for the Earth in the immensity of space, suggesting that it also soothes human loneliness.

Joanna Griffin and ISRO scientist P. Shreekumar work together as Moon Vehicle. Together with students at an Indian school they looked at the Chandrayaan space programme to seek ways of engaging with the moon rooted in Indian culture rather than science. The belief that the moon should be considered culturally rather than as resource for exploitation also underlies the workshops being organized by Sue Corke and Hagen Betzwieser, working together as ‘WE COLONISED THE MOON’. Come along and join the protest!

It is worth mounting yet another flight of stairs for the grande finale, Agnes Meyer-Brandis’ Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility. Inspired by a 17th-century narrative in which the protagonist is taken to the moon in a chariot drawn by ‘moongeese’, Meyer-Brandis raised a group of geese from eggs. Geese will attach themselves to the first living thing they see on hatching, so these geese all regard Meyer-Brandis as their mother. A film shows the various stages of their ‘astronaut training’ as they matured, and is both entertaining and enchanting. Meyer-Brandis’ efforts at teaching them to fly in formation (or at all!) are both amusing and somehow touched with pathos – as she took off in a microlight they opted to keep their feet on the ground!

Nearby a table-top model shows what their home on the moon will look like – a full-size version is currently the home of the geese, in Italy. In a control room that replicates that of the geese’s home, one can see six real-time views of the geese in various parts of this habitat, one of which being their control room. Here they walk about on the control panel, pressing with their feet the buttons switching the screens from one camera to another. You can likewise press the buttons to see what they are up to in different parts of their ‘space station’.

All in all, a visit to the ‘Republic of the Moon’ is an interesting experience.‘