Sea of Tranquility, 2006

Single-channel video
Color, sound
3:00 min.

Exhibitions

Dark Victory, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens, 2007
Video – Jukebox: Videos from Galleries, Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona, 2006 Sync, Cohan and Leslie Gallery, New York, 2006
Sync, Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, 2006
Sync, Artcore/Fabrice Marcolini, Toronto, 2006

In this computer-generated “time-lapse study” of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, the Eagle spacecraft and the American flag planted alongside are shown as they slowly disintegrate. Beginning with the original image transmitted on television, the video compresses years into seconds, until nothing remains but a pile of rubble—a cynical commentary on the decay of American idealism from the ’60s to the present day. The sound is taken from recorded radio transmissions between mission control and the lunar base, but the dialogue has been removed; all that remains are the beeping radio carrier signals, static, and interference.

Reviews

Jody Zellen, ‘Marco Brambilla’, Art US, Issue 13, May-June, 2006