What aliens could learn from the stuff we’ve left in space

Even in space, where none of us live, some of what we’ve left is space junk: stuff orbiting the earth that nobody particularly intended to leave anywhere. But much of what we’ve left in space is intentional. Some of it is symbolic artifacts intended for an audience of people here on Earth - the fallen astronaut, the American flag on the moon, a CD containing a list of over half a million people who wanted to send their names to a comet, courtesy of a NASA probe. In some cases, however, we are also sending a deliberate signal out beyond Earth, to be received by forces unknown. Rather than just listening for radio signals, which has been a staple of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, some earthlings have become interested in actively reaching out - broadcasting radio messages to anyone, or anything, out there that might be able to hear them. For reasons that are perhaps obvious, these are controversial projects.

Radio receives little critical attention. Of the various methods for communicating ideas and emotions—books, newspapers, visual art, music, film, television, the Web—radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood. This is likely because it serves largely as a transmission device, a way to take other art forms (songs, sermons) and spread them out into the world. Its other uses can be fairly pedestrian too: ball games and repetitive, if remarkably effective, right-wing commercial talk radio. Rush Limbaugh is the radio ratings champ; according to the industry’s trade journal he reaches 14.25 million listeners in an average week. Sean Hannity, working the same turf, trails him slightly.

But an equally large audience turns to the part of the dial where public radio in its various forms can be found. Public radio claims at least 5 percent of the radio market. National Public Radio’s flagship news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, featuring news and commentary along

On July 29, as part of its Sender, Carrier, Receiver program, Triple Canopy presented a briefing on the activities of the International Necronautical Society's Berlin Inspectorate at Program. As heard in this unofficial recording, Provan, Triple Canopy's editor, and Yamamoto-Masson disputed the INS's claim that Berlin is the World Capital of Death, and discussed attempts by its members—chief among them writer Tom McCarthy, artist Anthony Auerbach, and philosopher Simon Critchley—to surreptitiously recruit agents and take over major cultural landmarks. Click here to read the draft copy of their internal report, and here to listen to a file of covert INS recordings intercepted by Triple Canopy and prepared for the occasion.

audio essay : On Pharaohs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division) Originally broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM as part of Antepress’ Digestives series, Monday 24th May 2010 [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Subscribe: via iTunes

It seems significant, somehow, that Infinite Jest—the big buzzy signature meganovel of the nineties—was set at the end of the aughts. Most of the book’s action appears to take place in 2009, which means that we’ve all just survived the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. It also means that David Foster Wallace’s prophetic window has now (at least in the most literal sense) closed forever, in the same way Orwell’s did when we reached the actual 1984. And in fact Infinite Jest’s vision of the future does, these days, look slightly dated. One of the book’s nightmare scenarios is the existence of an entertainment so addictive that people watch it until they die—a film they access via a machine Wallace calls a “teleputer,” which turns out to be some kind of ungodly hybrid of HDTV, computer, telephone, and VCR; it crunches data on “3.6-MB diskettes” and plays films off actual physical cartridges. All of which carbon-dates the novel’s creation precisely back to the early-to-mid-nineties (i