Launch 6pm 5 July
Running 6-13 July
The Copper House Gallery
St Kevin’s Cottages, Synge Street, Dublin
Opening Hours
Mon-Fri 9:15am-5pm/Sat 11am-4pm
Exploration is deeply ingrained in the make up of human kind. Our struggle is that of contact. The Arecibo message was broadcast into space with the aim of reaching out to extra-terrestrial life. The message was broadcast into space via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodelling of the Arecibo radio telescope on 16 November 1974.
It was aimed at the globular star cluster M13 some 25,000 light years away. The “ones” and “zeros” contained information about the fundamentals of life on Earth. The total broadcast was less than three minutes. By the time the message reaches M13 the star cluster will no longer be in that location, therefore, the real purpose of the message was not to make contact but to demonstrate the capabilities and advances of humanity.
Arecibo is visual homage to the original message and a reflection on the birth of humanity, our growth and evolution.
Each image in the series is a composite of thousands of Jpegs extracted from Google Maps. The landscapes distorted by patterns of light, both natural and man made, explore important punctuations in human history.
About the Artist
David Thomas Smith is an Irish visual artist based in Dublin, who specialises in Post-Photographic Processes. His work has been exhibited in a number of diverse locations around the world from the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris to the Hyundai Motor Studio in Beijing. In 2017 he was nominated for one of photography’s most prestigious awards The Prix Pictet. David’s work has also appeared in a variety of publications from Esquire, Russia to Wired in the United States and anthologies such as Robert Shore’s Post Photography – The Artist with a Camera.