This weeks content had me deeply reflecting about life, and the miracle that is life as we exist on this rock, spinning in space. To think that there are a potential 130 other planets capable of supporting life and the potential of other intelligent beings in the universe is quite remarkable. However, is attempting to make contact and giving our coordinates within the universe something we should be doing? I am not so certain! Alas, here we are with the Voyager, in interstellar space, some 14.52 billion miles away (NASA/JPL-Caltech, 2022)!
After this weeks readings, I found myself reflecting on the medium which we use for the curation, consuming and storing of various texts. I also thought about the medium we use to view these texts and how taking something previously analog and digitizing it, can impact their authenticity and value. As I thought about these things, I thought about how they would apply to the medium that was used to store and share texts with the Golden Record. In light of this, I did some searching and learned that it is a gold plated, copper disc, with electroplated uranium on the outside to delay, as much as possible, the degradation of the information on the disc. Unlike a digital file that could ‘decay’ when the technology becomes obsolete (Smith, 1999), the precious metals and uranium used for the Golden Disc can prevent the disc from decaying for… well it has the potential to outlive humanity and the earth!
The other piece I found myself thinking about is the sheer amount of assumptions made on the part of the creators regarding the ability of another intellectual life form being able to understand these sounds, images and symbols. So much thought and detail was required to curate this time capsule, filling it with texts that represent humanity and life on Earth. But who is to say these messages will ever be decoded if found? During the podcast, Dallas Taylor discusses how Carl Sagan, and other creators of the disc adjusted the speed so that they could pack as much information onto the disc as possible. This gain in space meant there would be a loss in sound quality (Smith, 1999). The other thought I had was regarding the ability to extract this data from the Golden Record if it indeed was found. In all my searching, I could not find proof that a record player was sent along with the disc. This information is entirely dependent on a “machine to decode” it, generating sounds that will transmit the messages embedded on the disc. Without that, this data has no value (Smith, 1999, p. 4). If found, would the founders have the technology to play the disc? Luckily for me, I can stream the track list on YouTube!
Of the 27 songs, these are the ten I ended up choosing. It was definitely challenging to narrow down the list to only ten songs, which shed some insight on how challenging it must have been to only have 27 spots available on the Golden Record. This also coincides with the importance of curating large enough selections of texts to provide appropriate context. Is this collection of ten songs big enough to provide sufficient context of human life to extraterrestrial beings (Smith, 1999)? I don’t feel as though I have accomplished this with the ten I have selected, although I tried my best to represent various cultures and styles of music, that were interesting to me. I also found that I preferred songs that were more advanced in their sound quality… perhaps reflecting my tendency towards digitally mastered music.
- Track 6: El Cascabel
- Track 7: Johnny B. Goode
- Track 11: The Magic Flute (Queen of the night)
- Track 15: Bagpipes (Azerbaijan)
- Track 18: 5th Symphony (First movement)
- Track 19: Islel je Delyo Hagdutin
- Track 20: Night Chant
- Track 22: Panpipes (Solomon Islands)
- Track 24: Flowing Streams
- Track 25: Jaat Kahan Ho
References
NASA/JPL-Caltech. Retrieved July 9th, 2022, from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
Smith Rumsey, A. (1999, February). Why Digitize? Retrieved July 7th, 2022, from Council on Library and Information Resources website: https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/