The work refers to the Voyager, an unmanned exploratory spacecraft (probe) launched into outer space by NASA in 1977. A Golden Record with stored images and sounds representing the diversity of the species and cultures on earth was put on board as a message for intelligent extraterrestrials in case the Voyager encountered them at the conclusion of its journey, 40,000 years later. The collection of images (e.g. of luminaries, architectural and cultural treasures) and natural sounds (such as those made by various animals, ocean waves, wind) was complemented by a selection of music from different cultures and eras, and by greetings in 55 different languages. Signs providing scales of time, size, or mass were attached to many of the images, as well as for instructions and explanations regarding ways to reconstruct and retrieve the encoded data, although chances of hearing these sounds in outer space conditions are virtually nonexistent.

 

a quasi-readymade of the record's original soundtrack playing on a phonograph without being heard. The speaker is covered by a bell jar connected to a vacuum pump that sucks the air out, creating a vacuum around it which prevents the creation of sound waves, thus no sounds are heard. Under these simulated outer space conditions, the creation of a futuristic encounter destroys itself in the lack of apt physical conditions, thereby challenging the simplistic story which presents civilization and the history of mankind as a time-space capsule devoid of real communication and repercussions. The symbolic gesture of the human message that dared go further than any other, far beyond the moon and Mars, is exposed as hollow, absurd, and futile.

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