WAVES
2024 4’35’ stereoA film by Katerina Athanasopoulou
Score: Savvas Metaxas
Edit: Ian Clark
Synopsis
An alien woman responds to a half-forgotten message of interplanetary friendship. A film about communication, and the fingers that stir the digital.
Created in response to WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS, MOMus, Thessaloniki, Dec 2024 - Feb 2025. Curator: Domna Gounari
Director’s Statement
In 1972, the space probe Pioneer 10 was launched from Cape Canaveral, heading to Jupiter as part of the first reconnaissance of the Solar System. A gold-anodised aluminium plate was attached to it, named ‘Pioneer Plaque’, with an engraving designed by Carl Sagan. It features a naked human couple: a woman stands next to a man raising his hand into a human greeting; next to them is a diagram showing Earth’s position, a pulsar map that forms part of a precious space postcard. What if this ‘wish you were here’ message was indeed heard by Aliens? The film imagines an alien woman waving back, on her own Earth mission.
When thinking about the digital, much emphasis is put on code as an intangible power that occludes its manual origins: from ‘digitus’ which is Latin for ‘finger’, the digital has been from the start powered by human gestures - it measures, palpates, and stirs our instruments and our imaginations.
In times captured by AI utopias and dystopias, this film is made by (and for) human bodies; my keyboard and mouse are my Animator’s tools that I manipulate with my own digits, and I play my computer like a musical instrument.
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An alien woman responds to a half-forgotten message of interplanetary friendship. A film about communication, and the fingers that stir the digital.
Created in response to WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS, MOMus, Thessaloniki, Dec 2024 - Feb 2025. Curator: Domna Gounari
Director’s Statement
In 1972, the space probe Pioneer 10 was launched from Cape Canaveral, heading to Jupiter as part of the first reconnaissance of the Solar System. A gold-anodised aluminium plate was attached to it, named ‘Pioneer Plaque’, with an engraving designed by Carl Sagan. It features a naked human couple: a woman stands next to a man raising his hand into a human greeting; next to them is a diagram showing Earth’s position, a pulsar map that forms part of a precious space postcard. What if this ‘wish you were here’ message was indeed heard by Aliens? The film imagines an alien woman waving back, on her own Earth mission.
When thinking about the digital, much emphasis is put on code as an intangible power that occludes its manual origins: from ‘digitus’ which is Latin for ‘finger’, the digital has been from the start powered by human gestures - it measures, palpates, and stirs our instruments and our imaginations.
In times captured by AI utopias and dystopias, this film is made by (and for) human bodies; my keyboard and mouse are my Animator’s tools that I manipulate with my own digits, and I play my computer like a musical instrument.
