Not Even Orion

2015
Since the dawn of the space programs electro-magnetic waves (radio waves) and transmission served as tool for communication in space, between astronauts and mission control and between man and machine. Using different free sound recordings from the recently made accessible NASA soundcloud page, the composer created a sound miniature thematizing the role of the radio waves in space. The most obvious aspect of this communication ��� the communication between astronaut and mission control – does not play the most important role in this composition. Moreover sounds of oscillating and interfering radio waves in the earth's athmosphere, sonical interpretations of light waves (e.g. of the lightning on Jupiter) or sonifications of intestellar plasma movements have been used to create a utopian, futuristic ambient. This escapistic seeming collage is getting grounded by the only spoken sentence at the end. The astronaut indicates that he still can see the earth from the point where he's located. Scince manned spaceflights still don't reach as far as the escapistic desires of mankind, machines are the only tool to get to know the space in a larger scale. All the data and information of the machines that analyze the space on the account of the space programs are provided via radio waves. This miniature though also questions the objective materiality of radio waves: The received data from space can be reinterpreted into different types of output, be it visual or sonical.