In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up in their clothing. Wearing masks and googles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators. Their barrows heaped with shoddy. Towing wagons or carts. Their eyes bright in their skull. Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a think take the classe with it. Turn out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.
– McCARTHY, Cormac (2006). The Road, New York : Vintage, p. 28.
De toute mon existence, je ne me rappelle pas que mes rapports avec les autres aient donné un résultat autre que destructeur. J’entends par là que mon existence a non seulement affecté mes relations avec les autres, mais aussi que j’ai été anéanti par eux ou que j’ai contribué à les anéantir. J’ai été affecté de diverses façons jusqu’à ne plus croire en rien et surtout pas dans l’être humain. J’ai affecté leur existence – en supprimant leur espoir, leur vision du monde, leur sentiment, tout ce en quoi (monde des croyances et des valeurs) ils croyaient – au point qu’il n’est rien resté de ces relations. Pour dire le moins, j’ai été pour eux décevant. Mon existence n’a rien laissé – attendu qu’elle devait ou qu’elle aurait dû à tout le moins avoir quelques résultats, fussent-ils négatifs. Je ne crois pas l’avoir fait volontairement, avoir eu l’intention de détruire, mais le résultat a toujours été celui-là. Je ne crois pas non plus que les autres aient eu cette intention de me détruire. Il n’est pourtant rien resté. Ce rien, dont il est question ici, ne renvoie ni à la souffrance ni à l’absence ou à la fin de la relation. Ce rien, est-ce le résultat de relations entre personnes incompatibles, de malentendus entre elles? Est-ce le constat d’une existence particulièrement troublée? Je ne le crois pas. C’est une explication facile et habile que de renvoyer à une détresse, à une angoisse ou même à une névrose la difficulté, l’impossibilité de vivre avec les autres. Mais ce rapport à soi troublé, à quoi tient-il?
– OLIVIER, Lawrence (2008), Détruire : la logique de l’existence, éd. Liber, Montréal, pp. 11-12.
– Stephen Shore, U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973
The fast pace of life and the increasing speed of mouvement across vast American spaces, well before the beginning of the twintieth century, had begun to put a premium on quickly impressive, attractive images. They were creating a new Iconography of Speed. Competition for attention put a premium on attention-getting. The word “billboard”, which was invented in America, had first come in use about 1851, in the early days of the Graphic Revolution. The rise of the automobile, the improvement of highways in the 1920’s and ’30’s, and the consequent vast spread of billboards were now incentives to produce images that could catch the eye in a flash and remain indelibly imprinted on the memory.
– BOORSTIN, Daniel J. ([1961]1992). The Image. A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America, New York : Vintage Books, p. 199.
International Space University — Summer Session Program 2006
Luna Gaia posits a pathway towards new technologies, philosophies, systems applications and infrastructure aimed at achieving a closed loop habitat model for human settlement on the Moon. This report makes recommendations pertaining to the systems architecture, engineering processes, and the research, development and orchestration of separate phased precursor missions which will be required to achieve this vision by the year 2030. The framework that we propose is designed to support an ideal profile of an optimum 11 (maximum 12) member human crew on the lunar surface for a period of 18 – 36 months.
The Luna Gaia design solutions focus on the coupling power for all regenerative processes of a network of closed loop life support. Using proven and innovative solutions that produce relatively independent and highly reliable cycles of oxygen, water, energy, food growth and waste processing, the modular, hybrid bioregenerative network of systems particular to the Luna Gaia design architecture is ambitious but feasible.
This report also details ethical and philosophical considerations of lunar settlement and the wider implications for international law, policy and future interplanetary social governance. The authors intend to evolve the current status of thought and practice on these issues to consider new and responsible configurations of resource assets – on Earth and the Moon – and to inspire the will and confidence necessary to propel humanity, and its technology, towards the
next frontier of lunar settlement. The management principles are sound, the Earth-based applications are considered and the legal frameworks have been clearly defined. Certain risks are apparent but there are significant opportunities
and benefits which will occur. More importantly, the project vision is consistent with the preservation of life and responsible evolution into the solar system. […] Read more (pdf)
– Dedication without talent is useless. Understand what I mean? Dedication alone is not enough. You can starve and wanna do it… Hey! You know… And how many do that? They starve in the gutters… They don’t make it.
– But you knew you had talent.
– They all think they have! How do you know that you’re the one? You don’t know. It’s a shot in the dark. You take it or you become a normal civilized person from 8 to 5… Get married have children… Christmas together… Here comes gramma : «Hi gramma, come on in… Hi you…». You know… Sure I couldn’t take that, I would have murder myself.
Well, he’s a space orphan from Long Store 6
Left to rot on Cyborg 9
He was trying to find his way to Planet X
But stepped on a land mine
He only lost his third leg
But he’d never beg or put anybody down
And behind the great walls of China
Underneath the galaxies
He had a studio
And he wrote this song
– JOHNSTON, Daniel (1994). «Jelly Beans», album Fun.
– Norman Rockwell, «Santa Reading Mail», couverture du Saturday Evening Post, 21 décembre 1935.
OTTAWA (Reuters, Friday Dec 14, 2007) – Canada’s post office and police are trying to track down a “rogue elf” who wrote obscene letters to children on behalf of Santa Claus, a newspaper reported on Friday. [Lire la suite]
BEIJING, 11 décembre (Xinhua) — La caméra CCD (charge-coupled device) installée sur Chang’e-1, la première sonde lunaire chinoise, a commencé à photographier la face cachée de la Lune, a annoncé mardi l’Administration nationale de l’Espace de Chine (CNSA). […] Lire la suite
“It feels magnetic,” he says, turning his hands slowly in the reflected glow of the light from the almost full moon. The young professional from Colorado is among a growing number of curious people beating a path to this patch of scrub-strewn land out in the Arizona desert to bask in light from the world’s first moonbeam collector. [Lire la suite] [Voir la vidéo]
Talk about a lousy weekend
Couldn’t find a single friend friend
Had my heart set on disappointment
Up walks a super Joe Joe
Asks me how my day go go
Tells me good luck and spits on my shoe
CHORUS
But oh, oh, oh, the telephone rings
And oh, oh, oh there’s nobody there
Saw a girl on the street corner
Say, “Hey I’m a lonely loner”
She looks at me like I’m some sort of crud
Fast cars pass me by
Everybody curse me why
Find a donut in the sewer
CHORUS
Doesn’t matter what you eat
I think you’re all a bunch of creeps
And I would like to see you all gone
Stop comin’ round my door
I don’t care for you no more
Wish you would all just go away
Oh, oh, oh the telephone rings
Oh, oh, oh, there’s nobody there
Talk about a lousy weekend
– JOHNSTON, Daniel (1994). «Lousy Week-End», album Fun.
I can be whatever you want me to be, Ms. Bundchen was saying. If you want me to be the sexy girl, I can do that. If you want me to be the weird girl, I can do that. And if you want me to be the classically beautiful girl, I can do that, too.
Nov. 5, 2007 (Bloomberg) — Gisele Bundchen wants to remain the world’s richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar. Like billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, the Brazilian supermodel, who Forbes magazine says earns more than anyone in her industry, is at the top of a growing list of rich people who have concluded that the currency can only depreciate because Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means. [Lire la suite]
La Jeune-Fille est présentement le plus luxueux des biens qui circulent sur le marché des denrées périssables, la marchandise-phare de la cinquième révolution industrielle qui sert à vendre toutes les autres, de l’assurance-vie à la centrale nucléaire, le rêve monstrueux et bien réel du plus intrépide, du plus fantasque des commerçants : la marchandise autonome qui marche qui marche parle et fait taire, la chose enfin vivante, qui ne saisit plus le vif, mais le digère. Trois millénaires du labeur inlassable de milliards d’existences de boutiquiers replets, génération suivant génération, trouvent leur couronnement génial dans la Jeune-Fille : car elle est la marchandise qu’il est interdit de brûler, le stock qui s’engendre lui-même, la propriété inaliénable et incessible pour laquelle il faut cependant payer, la vertu qui sans arrêt se monnaye, elle est la catin qui exige le respect, la mort se mouvant en elle-même, elle est la loi et la police tout ensemble… Qui n’a, par éclair, entrevu dans sa beauté définitive et funèbre le sex-appeal de l’inorganique?
– TIQQUN (2001), Premiers matériaux pour une théorie de la Jeune-Fille [PDF, 11Mo], éd. Mille-et-une-nuits, Paris, pp. 140-143.
» Voir aussi EASTON ELLIS, Bret (1998). Glamorama.
– Image tirée de La Société du spectacle, Guy Debord, 1973
Iniquement accusé par ces mêmes media d’avoir assassiné son éditeur et par mépris pour un public indigne, Guy Debord avait décidé de leur retirer, jusqu’à sa mort, la possibilité de voir projetés ses films à l’écran. Il a tenu parole. Les temps auraient-ils changé, à présent, que tant de gens nous en réclament aujourd’hui les droits de diffusion? «NE ME FAITES PAS RIRE», aurait-il dit.
– Alice Debord, préambule à l’édition Gallimard (1999) du livre In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni de Guy Debord.
C’est Debord qui doit hériter de Debord. On y veille.
Who Killed Walter Benjamin?, David Mauas, 2007 [Site officiel]
David Mauas recently completed the conspiracy theory-laden Who Killed Walter Benjamin? The film heavily critiques the largely accepted idea that Benjamin committed suicide and, instead, theorizes that he was assasinated by agents working for Stalinist Russia.
– WHITSON, Roger (2007). «Who Killed Cultural Studies?», Long Sunday, 27 août. [En ligne]
In the meantime we were joined by an elderly gentleman, a younger female and her son. The gentleman, a German university professor named Walter Benjamin, was on the point of having a heart attack. The strain of mountain climbing on an extremely hot September day, together with the anxious endeavour to escape German arrest far too much for him. As we were at a resting place, we ran in all direction in search of some water to help the sick man…
[Lisa] Fittko’s account of what followed is now a justifiably famous element of the Walter Benjamin cult. Carina Birman’s personal story is not, but it includes the most recent of many last words about Benjamin’s death, a death on which, for his admirers, so much seems to hang that it, too, seems suspended: symbolic to the point of unreality, an enactment more than an event, like the death of the Christian messiah and the disappearance of the ‘risen’ body, for so long a matter of ardent conjecture.
– HARDING, Jeremy (2007). «Through The Trapdoor», London Review of Books, 19 juillet. [En ligne]
BEIJING (Reuters, Monday December 3, 2007) – China has dismissed Internet gossip that its first photo of the moon taken from a lunar orbiter might have been plagiarized from NASA, local media said on Monday.The country launched its first lunar probe, the Chang’e 1, in October and released a photo featuring a patch of grey moon surface splotched with craters last week, hailing the mission as a “complete success.”But some Chinese Internet users have questioned its originality after comparing it with an almost identical lunar image from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2005.
“There is absolutely no forgery,” Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the lunar probe, told the Beijing News. [Lire la suite...]
Auto-proclamé «Le premier film entièrement détourné de l’histoire du cinéma». Ce qui fait de Woody Allen – avec son What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) – un situationniste avant la lettre. Ne riez pas.
» La Dialectique peut-elle casser des briques?, René Vienet, 1973. [Wikipédia] [Nanarland]
The onboard high definition camera of the moon explorer “KAGUYA”, which is under initial functional verification, successfully acquired the world’s first high definition images of an “Earth-rise” and “Earth-set”. It was also the world’s first HD images of the Earth from about 380,000 km away in space. Image: (C) JAXA/NHK
1999, August 28: FIRST WOMAN ON THE MOON is realized in ten hours. During a short morning meeting with the crew, Aleksandra Mir draws a sketch of a crater in the sand. The 200×300 square-meter full-size landscape is thereafter completely improvised by the workers themselves. During the process of digging, tons of garbage and broken glass are revealed in the sand. It is collected and placed out on tables, making for an impromptu ‘Museum of Lunar Surface Findings’ to which the public contributes all day. By the afternoon, the water has unexpectedly risen to fill the craters, creating numerous little lakes for kids to play in. Everyone is taking pictures of everyone. And at sunset, the flag finally graces the highest hill, a champagne bottle is cracked open and the public is welcomed to join the astronauts on the moon. One person declares himself ‘The First Black Man on the Moon’, another, ‘The First German’. […] Read more
Women have tried to get into space ever since Project Mercury. That subject has been ably covered by Martha Ackmann in her book, The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight published in 2003. The subject of women in space was expanded in Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space written by Yale historian Bettyann Kevles, also published in 2003. Of course, no American woman flew during Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo; only the Soviets flew a single female cosmonaut and then for political advantage—read propaganda. It was the Cold War. NASA wouldn’t accept women applicants to the astronaut corps until 1978. The first American woman to fly into space aboard the space shuttle was Sally Ride in 1983, and the glass stratosphere was finally shattered. However, the names of the many women who followed aboard the space shuttle can only be learned through a search on the web. Practically anyone can name the Mercury Seven, but the first seven American women in space is a question for a game show. Sadly, these female pioneers of space are an enigma and virtually unknown today. Nevertheless, they paved the way, and that way now points to the Moon and eventually Mars. […] Read more…
NASA TV provides live coverage of missions and other agency events as well as resources for news media, educators and students, and the general public.
By Maijinn Chen, Payload Development & Integration, Bigelow Aerospace.
Bingo in space? This must be a Vegas idea. From the land of slot machines in grocery stores and poolside blackjack comes the next generation of gaming —space bingo. The Bigelow Aerospace-developed payload is the only bingo game of its kind. It is set to be launched with Genesis II in early 2007, and should be up and running by the middle of the year. This payload includes a unique enclosure design that reduces material weight while being structurally sound. It can autonomously mix and select bingo balls using a network of fans and solenoid activated levers. Its interior is adorned with space graphics and color lights set to the game cycle, and it houses 75 balls marked from B1 to O75. This is no blue-hair grandmothers’ plastic dome with a crank handle. But gamblers take note: There is no gambling involved here. Bigelow Aerospace isn’t a casino. “The bingo payload is meant to generate interest in the Genesis II mission by providing the public with a relatable in-flight experiment,” said Casey Harr, a robotic engineer on the bingo design team. “Through the Internet, those browsing the Bigelow site can feel that they’re directly connected to the spacecraft.” Bingo has never been so cool. […] read more…
Boston – Accrochés à leur portable, les adolescents américains d’aujourd’hui sont pourtant bien moins mobiles que leurs parents, préférant visiter le Web que le monde extérieur [sic]. Lors d’une conférence au Mobile Internet World à Boston, le Dr Norman Lewis, stratégiste du groupe Wireless Grids et ex-directeur de recherche chez Orange, en est persuadé: cette génération de la «culture de la chambre», centrée sur l’expression de soi, qui craint le monde extérieur [sic] et veut «connecter le monde entier à sa chambre», restera ainsi à l’âge adulte.
– BENHAMOU, Laurence (2007). «Mon monde dans mon portable», (AFP) Le Devoir, jeudi 15 novembre, B1
Il n’est pas nécessaire que tu sortes de chez toi, reste à ta table et écoute. Non, n’écoute pas, contente-toi d’attendre. N’attends même pas, reste tranquille et seul. Le monde s’offrira à toi pour que tu lui ôtes son masque; il ne peut faire autrement et, en extase, il se roulera à tes pieds.
– KAFKA, Franz ([1924]1994). Aphorismes, §109, éd. Joseph K., Paris.
Reconnaissant que l’exploration de l’espace représente un défi qu’aucun pays ne peut relever à lui seul, 14 agences spatiales se sont concertées pour élaborer un cadre qui définira et guidera leurs activités de collaboration dans les futures missions d’exploration spatiale. Il en ressort une vision pour l’exploration robotique et humaine de l’espace essentiellement axée sur des destinations du Système Solaire où l’on pourrait un jour vivre et travailler. […] Lire la suite
Tu as raison, il ne faut surtout pas faire comme Martyr et attendre la mort en chassant les taons qui sillent. Je vais fermer la porte derrière moi et monter dans la fusée qui m’attend au bout du champ. J’irai dans la lune pour voir qui des Russes ou des Américains aluniront les premiers; pour entendre le premier juron d’homme dans la mer des Sargasses. Je serai le premier ethnographe lunaire; j’ouvrirai un stand aussi, le Moon Snack Bar, pour les cosmonautes de passage et les lunautes amoureux qui viendront faire du parking derrière les rochers blancs. Je pourrai même inviter Martyr à monter à bord de la fusée. Noé croyait au couple, moi, je crois que nous sommes seuls; Martyr et moi sur la lune, la plus noble conquête de l’homme et vice-versa, quatre sabots dans la poussière lunaire. Et si un jour la lune devenait trop craoudée, si les gens s’y pressaient comme à la place Saint Pierre, on pourrait toujours revenir sur terre, les deux pieds sur terre. Je serai heureux. Transporté de joie comme une corneille dans un champ de maïs où le blé d’Inde jaunit en rangs serrés.
—Godbout, Jacques (1967). Salut Galarneau! Paris: Éditions du Seuil, pp. 60-61.
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