Mare Tenebrarum
Jim Ovelmen, Andrew West
Mare Tenebrarum, 2019
Linen and polyester, acrylic painting, pvc, plastic and electrical components
116 × 167 × 167 in | 294.6 × 424.2 × 424.2 cm
Mare Tenebrarum, 2019
Linen and polyester, acrylic painting, pvc, plastic and electrical components
116 × 167 × 167 in | 294.6 × 424.2 × 424.2 cm
SWAB Barcelona
September 26-29, 2019
AWOL at SWAB Barcelona 2019 on Artsy https://www.artsy.net/show/awol-awol-at-swab-barcelona-2019
Satellite Art Show SXSW
Austin, TX
March 13- 7, 2019
September 26-29, 2019
AWOL at SWAB Barcelona 2019 on Artsy https://www.artsy.net/show/awol-awol-at-swab-barcelona-2019
Satellite Art Show SXSW
Austin, TX
March 13- 7, 2019
An installation in remembrance of the brief yet remarkable career of NASA’s third Mars Exploration Rover Impression that explored an area of the red planet opposite Spirit and Opportunity. It landed without incident in the isolated seabed Mare Tenebrarum, and was the first of the rovers to analyze feldspar. Darkness beset the launch of Impression on March 20th, 2003, as the first U.S. military strikes upon Iraq overshadowed media attention. The rover’s triumphant landing and power-up on February 4th 2004, was equally beset by distraction. The website launch of Facebook that day was complicated by a tiny but vociferous Flat-Mars Society campaign, proclaiming all planetary robotic missions as “hoaxes”. Mechanical difficulties began almost immediately. Imagery received was clouded by dust, and visual interpretation was required to make sense of every picture. Most troubling were the rover’s answers to JPL commands. Under continual observation, “Impy” (as engineers called it) exhibited behavioral problems. Routine requests returned error messages that appeared idiosyncratic. As objective operations failed, unprecedented responses became legible as language patterns. Impy’s last received transmission baffled the space community with a disquieting message that could scarcely suggest anything but machine self-awareness. During a perfect storm of extraordinary solar radiation and seasonal dust cyclones, Impy’s last transmission contained these words embedded in binary code:
-My battery is low, and it’s getting dark.
Nothing has been heard from Impression since November 2, 2004. It is believed to retain low function, based on its ability to hibernate and conserve power during planetary winter. Whatever challenges Impression experienced, it nonetheless was able to traverse vast distances across the Martian surface, entering areas still unknown. The complete story of Impression’s mission may never be understood – until further contact, we can only conjecture.
Mare Tenebrarum is a project developed by artists Jim Ovelmen and Andrew West.
-My battery is low, and it’s getting dark.
Nothing has been heard from Impression since November 2, 2004. It is believed to retain low function, based on its ability to hibernate and conserve power during planetary winter. Whatever challenges Impression experienced, it nonetheless was able to traverse vast distances across the Martian surface, entering areas still unknown. The complete story of Impression’s mission may never be understood – until further contact, we can only conjecture.
Mare Tenebrarum is a project developed by artists Jim Ovelmen and Andrew West.