Sasha Stiles and her AI-Alter Ego honoring the 50th Anniversay of the Arecibo Message
“Somewhere up there,
my name etched in dusk,
sky poem older than memory.
Luminous letters
folding back years,
burning the edge of eternity.”
from: THE MESSAGE by Sasha Stiles and her AI-Alter Ego
We are delighted to announce the world premiere of the first fulldome work by wonderful AI and language artist Sasha Stiles. The Oxford and Harvard graduate is one of the leading artists of generative art in the 21st century. She has received numerous internationally renowned awards for her work. It can be found in the world’s most important museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York. THE MESSAGE was commissioned by the Herbert W. Franke Foundation and created by Sasha Stiles for the 50th anniversary of the Arecibo Embassy in November 1974: the first and so far only large-scale attempt to make contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence by radio. The digitally encrypted signals of this image were sent into space from the world’s largest radio telescope at the time in Arecibo on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.
For the premiere of THE MESSAGE, the foundation was able to secure the Planetarium Bochum, which has one of the largest star domes in Germany with state-of-the-art fulldome technology.
Planetarium Bochum
CONTACT ATTEMPT – 50 Jahre Arecibo Message
Weltpremiere “The Message” von Sasha Stiles
18. November – Beginning: 7 pm (entrance 6 €)
Tickets here
Saha Stiles developed the poem THE MESSAGE – digitally visualized and accompanied by sound – together with a language model that she herself has been training for several years with mainly her own texts.
To introduce the 25-minute fulldome performance in the Bochum Planetarium, Susanne Paech will give a half-hour lecture on the history of ideas about the habitability of alien worlds and provide information about the historic event of the Arecibo message by radio astronomer Frank Drake, who in 1974 dared to make the first and so far only large-scale attempt to make contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence by radio.
After a short pause, the second part of the evening in the planetarium will feature a 40-minute art performance with the three winners of the CONTACT ATTEMPT and longer excerpts from multimedia works by the finalists of the competition, alongside two out-of-competition awards from the foundation. The Foundation had invited the global community of generative artists to participate in this competition. 155 participants from 46 countries responded to the call. The winners and finalists of the Open Call will be publicly announced two days earlier, at a matinee in the Hamburg Planetarium on November 16. All works will also be published on the foundation’s website in the days following the announcement.
About the art meets science – Foundation Herbert W. Franke
The art meets science – Foundation Herbert W. Franke was established in 2022 by Franke’s wife Susanne Paech. It honors the life’s work of visionary Herbert W. Franke and promotes connections between art and science with publications, events and exhibitions. It also supports scientific projects in the field of Franke’s research work. An important task is also the cataloging of works in cooperation with the Center for Art and Media | ZKM Karlsruhe, the location of Franke’s extensive work archive.
