University of California Press | ISBN:0520275004 | File Type: PDF, 208 pages | File size: 77.Mb | Sep. 1st, 2012
Cultural Anthropology: Human civilizations longest lasting artifacts are not the great yramids of Giza nor the cave paintings at Lascaux but the communications satellites that circle our planet In a stationary orbit above the equator the satellites that broadcast our TV signals route our phone calls and process our credit card transactions experience no atmospheric drag Their inert hls will continue to drift around Earth until the Sun expands into a red giant and engfs them about 4 5 billion years from now This book chronicles a project intended to explain to someone at some point in the distant future long after the traces of human civilization have disappeared what happened to the people who built the derelict spacecraft Artist geographer Trevor aglen spent four years interviewing scientists philosophers anthropologists and artists about the profound contradictions that characterize contemporary civilizations He collected 100 images inspired by questions about how we conceive of life the relationship between vision knowledge and power the limits and possibilities of language our relationship to nature and the ways we try to control it and much more These images which are the centerpiece of the book will be etched onto an tra archival silicon disc nested inside a golden shell and put into orbit onboard the EchoStar 16 satellite in summer 2012 Interspersed with short texts by people who contributed images ideas and critical questions to the project The Last ictures is a book about perception communication deep time and the economic environmental and political uncertainties that characterize our historical moment
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