Living on the Moon for generations, humanity will adapt to life without
atmosphere and oxygen. Human beings will mutate in such a way that they will be able to live in
vacuum. Their organs will change and breathing will no longer be necessary. Since there is no
sound in vacuum, they will live in total silence. They will not speak to each other, and instead
communicate in a way that is unimaginable to us now.
The phenomena of sound traveling through air, which used to be so important for communication,
the formation of language and identity of the Self, the Other and the environment on the Earth, will
be absent on the Moon.
Sound on the Moon will instead be captured in the vibrations of solid objects and things, and the
limits of these vibrating things will hence be the limits of sound propagation.
If Moon humans will want to experience the sensation of sound as we hear it on Earth, they will
have to use recorded or transmitted sound to vibrate their skulls. They will use small vibrating
transducers, which they will bite like a lollipop in order to enable the sound vibrations to propagate
from the transducer through teeth and skull into their inner ear. Their mouth will turn into a
hearing organ and their head will become a vibrating loudspeaker, through which they will be able
to hear. This device will be called Teethphones™.
For them, listening to any recorded sound from a distant past will form a mental link to their
earthly ancestors - a link to a lost dimension of life which formed them so significantly.
Their relation to the recorded sounds from Earth and human voice will not be unlike the relation we
have towards the Moon in present times. For them, these sounds will exist far away in space and
time, and yet, they will appear so close, more than close - as they will appear only inside one's head
as sound vibrations of one's skull.
This relation to sound will create an intimate and nostalgic thread between the Moon humans and
the breath of life as we know it today, serving them as a recorded memory as well as a vehicle for
mythical interpretations of their Earthly origins.
Credits
Author: Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec
The installation is a commissioned work (2010) for Moon Life Concept Store - an exhibition of prototypes
and ideas for future life on the Moon - initiated by Alicia Framis.
Supported by Mondriaan Foundation.
Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanič
Technician: Valter Udovičić
Thanks: Mestna Galerija Nova Gorica, RX-TX, Šempeter pri Gorici
The programme of Aksioma Institute is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec (SI/NL) is an artist and musician working with invisible ephemeral phenomena and the notion of space. His artistic practice is a poetic exploration of relationships between transitory and temporal flows like sound and weather phenomena and architectural and social spaces they inhabit. In his installations, he makes architecture sensitive to its immediate ephemeral surroundings and enhances the temporal dimension of architecture by creating situations where the outside and inside, the unpredictable and constructed, the permanent and temporal, time and space converse. His works encompass interdisciplinary and mixed media installations, sound interventions and electro acoustic music. In 2010 his work Virtual Mirror - Rain got awarded Hybrid Arts Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria.