Krassimir Terziev

A Message from Space

“Space debris is turning our outer atmosphere into a trash-mosphere.”
Nicole Hughes, in: TakePart (04/24/2008)

With the appearance of such non-human objects (yet products of human activity) as global warming, the ozone hole, and space debris, concepts such as social space, site specificity, and social interaction need reconsideration in entirely new dimensions. Global economy and technological development appear to affect the environment far beyond the human scale.

How to look and apprehend such phenomena from the perspective of the “ordinary individual” (lacking professional expertise) is a question. It is no longer a matter of empirical experience. The imagination and intellectual interpretation can only rely on the mediation of scientific data.

In the case of space debris, the only occasions of encounter as empirical experience turn out to be the accidents when objects reenter the atmosphere and hit people in their daily spaces of dwelling. All these accidents have a sort of a magical character.

It is far from rational from the perspective of single human life to imagine that a piece of space shuttle, after being launched some 20 years ago, would hit a woman in her backyard in California, or a piece of a derelict Russian satellite, after orbiting the earth for a several decades, would reach its final destination in the desert of Australia in front of local shepherds.

[download PDF, 152 kb]

A Message from Space, 2008/2009

Two-channel video installation, 16 min. loop, HD Video, B&W & color, mute
The work contains textual quotations and images from the website of Paul Maley
(http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/debris.html), with the prior permission of the author. There are also still images and a video excerpt incorporated from the website of NASA (www.nasa.gov) following the “Use of NASA Imagery” guidelines on the website.