For the residency, I’ve created a series of 7 signs borrowed from the Dutil-Dumas Message, an interstellar message sent by SETI scientists in 1999. Carrying basic information about humanity and Earth, these messages were sent out in the hope of establishing communication with beings in other worlds. 

The signs signifying the concepts of ‘Power’, Mass’, ‘Force’, ‘Division’, ‘Negation’, Charge’, ‘Undetermined’ were built in virtual realm of Cattle Depot Artist Village in Minecraft. The work can be accessed in different ways… the audience can go on Minecraft and experience the intervention virtually; specific meanings and snapshots of these signs, together with the research materials can be accessed through the website of Vital Capacities; lastly the result of the intervention is presented as a short video titled Flying Inside Your Own Body. The work is therefore a combination of these platforms that complement each other.

Flying Inside Your Own Body
Poem by Margaret Atwood

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.

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