The live television broadcast documentation of the Apollo 11 mission is the substrate for Daniel Meir's sound work. Every moment of the morning broadcast was documented in detail by some camera crews. The fruits of their labor were broadcast around the world, beginning with the filmed and smiling breakfast and ending with the moment when all that was left of the spaceship was a small dot in the sky, which also disappeared.
The work operates in an acoustic chamber set up in the gallery space. It is about twenty minutes long, and it is intended for one visitor or visitors at a time. The video (whose chronological order has been destroyed) is used purely as a substrate for the sound. You can also close your eyes and devote yourself to listening only. The journey opens with a compressed and metallic sound, as if the metal alloys, the sensors, the insulation materials and the regulation systems have joined together to create a pulsating and layered metallic choir, which accompanies and promotes the play. You can hear the many parts coming together into one machine, with strings stretched.
With the transition to surveillance cameras, the soundtrack also changes. The vehicle with the astronauts in it moves forward on the road dedicated to its use. Mobiles in front of him and behind him, stand to serve him. The convoy passes the cars on the sidelines and the crowd of spectators, and the sound is released from its compression. A dull and consistent mechanical hum remains. The vehicle is advanced. Fewer and fewer companions are standing on the side of the road.
Finally the mobility also stops, and he continues alone: a flashing white cube slides on gray surfaces. The mechanical hum becomes a human voice trying to break through to us, perhaps through a communication system, but the words themselves cannot be understood. The undeciphered murmur brings to mind an ancient mother tongue, perhaps the one that was the fruit of the first ripeness of the linguistic revolution that ended with Homo-Speines ruling the earth. Perhaps this is the tongue of the earth, mother-of-all-living that is about to say goodbye to three of her children and send them to the rock block that was once a part of her too. We watch in silence, and suddenly she can be heard moaning and groaning.
