BASE CAMP LOST ASTRONAUT IN LAB APF
15, Wooster Street New York
3 NOVEMBER-22 NOVEMBER
12-6pm open hours
(models of moon houses, lunar forniture)
3 NOVEMBER-16 NOVEMBER, PERFORMANCES (read here instructions, hours and places)
Here the instructions sent to the Lost Astronaut. You can follow the Lost Astronaut any day, any time, online, and visit her at her base camp, from november 3RD to 22ND, 2009, noon to 6pm, at Art Production Fund Lab, 15 Wooster Street, New York. Performa Premiere 2009.
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/lostastro
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-Astronaut
LOST ASTRONAUT INSTRUCTIONS:
Tuesday. November 3rd- 8:00 pm- Base Camp-
Author: Silvia Prada
The "Lost Astronaut" must attend the opening party event of the performance-installation ON NOVEMBER 3RD and socialize with those present, and dance.
In LAB APF, 15 WOOSTER STREET NEW YORK 9PM
Wednesday, November 4th – 10:00 am - 43 Mercer Street NY
AUTHOR: Rita McBride
Below lies an excerpt from the yet to be published Myways II. This newly uncovered collection of letters from the famed “Agony Aunt” genius Gina Ashcraft follows the highly celebrated first volume Myways, edited by Rita McBride and David Gray. In a typically “Gina world” bizarre turn of events, the discovery of these selected letters has coincided with the re-appearance of the estranged daughter of Gina Ashcraft, Ina Stein Ratinoff, who has come forward after 25 years of silence.
Dear Gina,
I am an astronaut by profession. I know you usually help artists but as I continue to be lost after my one and only trip to the moon 39 years ago, I feel that you are the person that can help me. My endeavors have never been celebrated. The mission I commanded was top secret and therefore not subject to the usual fanfare afforded to the Apollo boys. In fact, I was the first on the moon. I made it there, walked in that luscious white dust, planted a flag, and have photos to prove it! I was not so lucky with my return flight. I had the same problem that Gemini 8 had a year later, only more intense. The thruster malfunction caused my ship to spin out of control in a never ceasing orbit of Mother Earth. Never was I allowed a suitable ocean plunge until I was propelled out of space on August 13, 2009 in a meteor shower that threw a hundred stars with me. I now walk the streets of Manhattan, alone, unable to shed my space suit because no one will touch me. I am a healthy, drop-dead gorgeous, brilliant female; accomplished, with a savings account and a wealth of experience. I don't really want a husband, but I need relief. You see, something about this ill-fitted suit and all those years of spinning has left me in a suspended state of excitement. Houston, Houston do you read?
Moonstruck
***
Dear Moonstruck,
Yes, I read you loud and clear! Don't you worry your pretty self!
There is an agile thruster at work in your stars! We can get you landed right here in Soho! Unlike your celebrated colleagues, who have exhibited a tired penchant for politics, aerospace executive bonuses and motivational speaking, you have the world at your fingertips!
Here is my Gina 24 hour remedy. Follow these instructions carefully and don't forget to have fun!
[I recommend putting a dash in front of each instructions]
On a full moon morning plant your flag at 43 Mercer Street.
- Begin to collect rock specimens and other items of interest from the street.
- Tag and bag your specimens until 11 am.
- One half hour of repose.
- At 11:30am enter Babeland.
- Slowly and carefully consider every object.
- Engage with the knowledgeable staff.
- Eat something.
- At fourteen hundred hours begin to couple your rocks with the objects in the store.
- After laying the specimens with the merchandise take out your easel.
- Set it up, get your silky white chalk ready and proceed to draw each coupling, carefully interpreting what you see, adding emotion and arty spunk!
- After a day of heavy sketching YOU WILL FEEL GREAT!
Voila! You are on your way to a blastoff exhibit in Soho!
Happy Thrusting!
Gina
***
November 11, 2009
Dear Gina,
Thank you so much for engineering my debut as an artist in the very seedbed of all contemporary art, SoHo. Most artists would die for this opportunity and I certainly appreciate all that it has done for my bank account. But Gina, I have a new problem. All this chalking around on black paper has started to give me a rather peculiar affection for white powder. I have started to snort it, carrying kilos of it around in super sized ziplock bags so that I may powder myself at a moments notice. I now live in a cloud of white dust not unlike the Milky Way!
Houston, Houston please advise!
Artsy Astronaut
***
Dear Artsy Astronaut,
Congratulations! You are a true artist! Following in the footsteps of fellow astronaut /artist Alan Bean, who devoted his life to painting the moon- he even took a fantastic group photo up there with the inventiveness of a real artist using the reflection of his own visor! You rank girlfriend!
Enjoy your beautiful art cloud!
We Have Liftoff!
Gina Houston Houston
Thursday, November 5th – 6:00am – Base Camp
Author: Marina Abramovic
1: Wake up 6:00 am
2: Sit on a chair in front of a window drinking a glass of water for 15 minutes.
3: Open and close any door you find interesting, without entering or exiting the space for 60 minutes.
4: Go out of your house, walking as slowly as possible along the street for three hours, always looking in front of you.
5: Go to Penn Station and buy a ticket for a place you have never been. Get out of the train and then get on the first train back.
6: Eat a slice of old bread, chewing slowly.
7: Read an entire New York Times, backwards.
Friday, November 6th – 5:45 pm - Modern Drum Shop 241 W 30th Street
Author: Matthew Licht
“Female Astronaut Mission to New York”
5:45 pm
Arrive at the Modern Drum Shop (241 W 30th Street)
Purchase Custom Jazz Model sticks, nylon tip. (Earthling currency provided).
As soon as you have the salesperson’s attention: “Earthling, Mars needs paradiddles.”
Should drum store staff balk at the prospect of having to give lessons in percussion rudiments for the price of a pair of sticks, you are authorized to point your Ray-Gun at them. Make threatening gestures.
“The choice is yours, puny earthling…paradiddles or instant vaporization and phosphorus recovery. Of course, I could choose to vaporize you anyway, once the secrets of paradiddles are ours.”
Special Dispensation: Paradiddles are difficult. Don’t worry about your feet yet. Get the helpful drum hostage/victim to teach you a basic kick-drum/rimshot combo. This will come in handy during Phase Two of The Mission.
6:15 pm
By now, a sizable crowd of rhythm-happy or rhythm-ambitious humanoids will have gathered around you. It’s not every day you get to see a female astronaut in full space suit regalia learning basic paradiddles from drumcrafters who once dreamed of being the next Gene Krupa, the next Buddy Rich.
When the moment feels right, turn on the crowd.
“There aren’t enough female astronauts. Women have illegally been denied access to the moon, that most obviously female of celestial bodies. But the problem of exclusion isn’t limited to space exploration. Why aren’t there more female drummers? Why does the chick in the band always get stuck playing bass?”
Invite women in the crowd, provided there are any, to participate in a store-wide female drum circle. Get the paradiddles going in a slow, regal Boredoms-style female mass percussion Zen meditation.
Store the ying-positive energy for Phase Two of The Mission.
Phase Two
7 pm
Wander up Broadway to Times Square.
Cease wandering at the triangular pedestrian island between 45th and 46th Streets.
Spend at least ½ hour grokking the Tibetan Chant/Subway Drone/Breath of the Universe sound sculpture installed by the almost unbelievably brilliant Max Neuhaus.
Sway with the phantom beat. Turn your hands into spacey elephant ears over the auricular areas of your Space Helmet.
Ask innocent passersby if the know what causes the sound. Vaporize those who claim they don’t know with the Ray-Gun. Recover their phosphorus. Earthlings unaware of Max Neuhaus’ work are best removed from the Gene Pool (which is not the pool where Gene Krupa did his daily 50 breast-stroke laps).
Note: Max Neuhaus was an extremely promising jazz drummer before he went over to the Dark Side, i.e. the Art World (which has nothing to do with Art Blakey.)
Phase Three
7:45 pm
Dinner at Sapporo (152 W 49th Street)
Grok the futuristic Blade Runner atmo rising up around you.
Gyoza and Ginger Pork highly recommended.
Separate the small, inadequate chopsticks. Practice alternating paradiddle patterns on the plate and water glass. Should waitstaff and/or humanoid restaurant patrons become annoyed with your appetite-suppressing Benzedrine-enhanced percussion fit, vaporize them, recover their phosphorus, and use the crystalline powder to add flavour to complimentary miso soup.
(Option: Snort vaporized former Earthlings in the ladies’ room. Offer the waitresses a toot.)
Phase Four
9:15 pm
At this stage, you are an official Times Square nocturnal fauna resident weirdo, i.e. as far off into Outer Space as it’s possible to go without actually departing the planet’s grave, gravid gravitational grip.
Time to hit The Deuce.
Moon-walk the North Side of 42nd Street. Turn on the XXX Adult Action Ghost-o-Scope, take spectral spectrographic readings of faded semen-splatters and blood-spray patterns.
Moon-walk past the former entrance to the Pit of Hell, aka Show World Center, aka The Comedy Store (as if laughter were a commodity for purchase and/or sale) to the Times Square Arts Center at 669 Broadway, near the corner of Eighth Avenue.
Arts Center management will probably insist you pay an entry fee, even though you are plainly a performer. Mission Control provides, once more.
Comedy Club patrons will see the Space Suit and assume The Mission is all part of an act. And it is! Or might as well be…
Approach the stage with a tentative stride. If there’s a drum kit handy, get behind it! Not only will you be able to show off your newly acquired paradiddle chops, you’ll achieve a wistful Karen Carpenter/Christa McAuliffe aura. They’ll eat it up!
The following brief comedy routine is the crux of The Mission.
Control is counting on you to make them laugh.
“The best part of being a female astronaut is Zero Gravity. It means we get to pee standing up…side down!” (rimshot/cymbal splash)
“Also…no bra.” (lightning paradiddle)
“Boobs and buns stand up firm, proud, American…and point towards God.” (rimshot)
“Very liberating…but a girl gets lonely in orbit. Space Stations are cold, impersonal places, with zero privacy. We female astronauts got together and insisted on vibrational built-in self-pleasure units in our Space Suits. Just press this little button here (diddle chest area of the Space Suit) and…Cape Canaveral blast-off!”
(Toilet-flush drum solo fanfare finale)
“Thanks for your tax dollars, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been a great Earthling audience.”
Mission accomplished. See if Times Square Arts Club management will give you a complimentary cocktail.
Matthew Licht
Copyright Star-Date 2009
Saturday, November 7th – 12:00 pm - The NY Public Library
(5th Avenue at 42nd street)
Author: Brian Keith Jackson
“The Memorial of Patience and Fortitude”
Needed: 100 unsharpened pencils with erasers. One small school-like manual pencil sharpener, the kind held between thumb and forefinger. One backpack, a astronaut bag or a children’s school box to hold pencils.
Time frame: Noon to 2pm, or as long as it takes.
The Lost Astronaut arrives at the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. LA stands at the bottom of the steps, center. LA stares at the building for three minutes, taking in its Beaux-Arts structure, its history, this mausoleum of thought.
LA slowly climbs the steps toward the entrance, as though walking on the moon, stopping before entering. LA turns, looks out towards Fifth Avenue at the humans buzzing by, and heads back down the steps. It then makes its way to Patience, one of the two marble Lions protecting the Library. Patience is the Lion at the southern part of the entrance. LA bows to Patience, then takes off its bag/school box and pulls out the pencils and sharpener. It faces the street and begins to sharpen the pencils, one at a time until nothing but the erasers and the point remain. The shards of wood and lead float down to the ground, some of the pieces are longer than others, but still remnants of words lost, of books no longer printed and bound, or thoughts written on paper. It will take patience to sharpen these tools of yore that have now made a comeback in a world inundated with technology, with speed, which I needed a century ago. The shards of wood that will never become paper are merely the tears of Patience, gathered at her base. Tactile yet soon gone, they are tossed by the elements, nothing but commas - a continuation, and eventually a period - an end.
The sharpening of the pencils is a slow and mournful process. They are our history, our thoughts, our imagination, our curiosity and yes, people will be curious, something that should never die, and yet…
When the last pencil has been sharpened, LA gathers all of them; nothing but the erasers and the point exist. LA holds them in the palms of her hands and, as though an offering, arms outstretched, slowly walks toward Fortitude, the Lion that is on the North side of the entrance. When LA arrives in front of Fortitude, she bows toward it, and then places the erasers in a tidy pile in front of its base. The erasers become, in essence, a bouquet; an acknowledgement of strength and endurance, qualities so lost in this future that we call existence.
Patience provides the work, Fortitude the strength to see it through. They are more than marble bookends to these hallowed halls, they are the hope for its future.
When the erasers are placed, LA again goes to the center of the steps, climbs to the entrance. LA again pauses and looks out toward the street. LA turns back to the doors and enters the library, disappearing into an old but new world. What it finds or does there, we do not know or witness. Its entrance is enough. The quest for knowledge is often an individual pursuit.
NOTE: Though this process is to be done outside, it can also be recreated in a gallery space. No, the library won’t be there, nor will the Lions, but in a confined space the shards from the pencils will provide their own pile. The LA can then take the erasers to the other end of the gallery, placing them in a pile. These two areas can remain in the space, thereby becoming installation/sculpture for viewers to witness. One pile represents Patience, the other Fortitude. The video of the actual event could be played as well.
Sunday, November 8th - 5:00 pm - Base Camp
AUTHOR: Kim Ann Fox
Please put together an animal themed jigsaw puzzle from start to finish while enjoying a cup of tea.
Monday, November 9th –10:00 am – Base camp
AUTHOR: John Menick
Spend the first hours of the morning reading the 1892 travel guide, King's handbook of New York City: An Outline History and Description of the American Metropolis.* This will be your guide to New York. Read about the places you have already visited. Read about the places you would like to visit. Study it. Then select several places to which you have never been. Go to them and note the differences between the descriptions in the book and how they are today. Maybe photograph them. Move on.
* One of the oldest New York travel guides, though maybe not the oldest. I’m sure a copy can be found at The New York Historical Society or The New York Public Library. A free version can be downloaded from: http://books.google.com/books?id=cKkUAAAAYAAJ
Tuesday, November 10th - 4:00 pm - Base Camp
AUTHOR: SHELLEY JACKSON
Locate and visit as many of the following features as you can, whether on foot or by employing local means of transport, and stake a claim to their discovery, announcing the name by which they will henceforth be known, as specified below. This may be done in any fashion you wish, provided it is public. For example, you might make a proclamation, post a scroll, plant a flag of any dimensions (e.g. cocktail-sized), or all of the above. Records should be kept for the benefit of future expeditions, and to prove your claim to first discovery. Mark features on a map of the region, correcting by hand any erroneous labels. In accurately identifying features, it is necessary to think analogically; a crater can be an architecturally-induced state of mind, as well as a geographical feature. If you make discoveries not anticipated by this list, please name them yourself.
Note: Not all the places named may be located in this vicinity, or even on this cosmic body.
Features of the New Moon, Formerly Known as the Earth
Courtesy of the Department of Speculative Geography (DSG)
Near Miss Crater
Point Out
Contingency Plains
The Domestic Mystery Mounts the Stairs with Frightful Dignity
The Tooth
The Grudge
Mount Objection
The Shadows Are Holes Scissored Into Another World
Never-Netherland
My Fault
The Lake of Excluded Middle
The Assist
Is. of Isn’t
Some Clouds Prefer the Ground
Valley Of One Remove
Canyon of Calculated Omission
Horn of Appetite
Bay of Fat Chance
The Horse’s Other Mouth
Gulf of Ananthropy
The Essential Emits a Hairball With an Air of Surprise
Wide Berth Bay
Slough of Surmise
Garden of Almost Enough
The Prosthesis
The Marsh of Dampened Expectations
Disengagement Ring
Arm’s Length Escarpment
Little Leg Up Point
This Conversation Has Gone on Long Enough
The Second Hand Here
The Almost There
The Down-to-Earth Heights
The Promontory of Improbable Optimism and Noses
Camp Ground
Mount Dismount
The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson
The Slough
The Apology
Oh, Say, Can You Sea
The Wandering Uterus Dunes
The Spur of Ambition, Tempered By Humor
The Stump
The Stolen Property
The Sea of Red Ink
Rethink Rise
Hill of Beans
The Yes Factory is Open For Business
The Cape of Just Visiting
Home Sweet Hysteria
The Fjord of Forth
An Inside With an Outside In It
Wednesday, November 11th – 12:00 pm - Base Camp
AUTHOR: Frances Richard
“Five hours (two running concurrently) (plus one) on Earth”
* Hour No. 1
You are alone, and this might be very terrible and also ridiculous and also not a problem and also only true in certain ways—lots of things are like not going to the moon. They have taken off in a spew of fiery thrust for the otherworld without you, is that it? Presumably you trained together. Presumably you were on a team, competitively selected, a member in good standing of a cadre welded into a smoothly functioning mechanism by mutual support and rigorous drills in which each played a part, carefully studying and experimenting with oxygen, G Force, countdown, titanium bolts, heat-resistant tiles, the goddess Diana, calisthenics, freeze-dried nourishment. But abruptly, as in a slapstick road comedy, they peeled out in a squeal of dust from the gas station, they are now a puff of smoke diminishing on the horizon, and you were in the bathroom or forgot your wallet on the counter or went back to buy an iced tea or stood flirting by the ice-cream case. You were temporarily dematerialized, thus they left, absurdly, accidently, unbelievably, without you.
They spaced out.
It has to have been an accident. They feel bad.
Your two-way communications are malfunctioning, so they can’t swoop back along the ecliptic to pick you up. You’ll laugh about it later. Dude, what was that? So—anyway—how was your trip? Me? I walked around.
For now, though.
The darkness of intentional abandonment burns like a corona around the edge of thought-rise. It might be. You are home alone on earth.
Are you wearing a spacesuit? Do you wish to be conspicuous about your alienation? Has the atmosphere of your natural habitat turned insupportable? Do you insist on memorializing that which almost happened but finally failed? Think about this.
You may change your mind.
From moment to moment, know what your answer is.
* Hour No. 2
Step out onto the street.
Ask someone, “Where is a library?” Keep asking ‘til someone knows.
Set out to walk there.
For one block
Enter every building you can without awkward effort.
In each, identify one object that reminds you of the moon.
First thought, best thought.
In the medium of your choice (drawing, photography, writing, sound recording, memory, etc.) notate the object and its relation to the moon as you imagine it. Be quick.
If you find nothing, find ways to notate “nothing.”
Do not buy anything.
For the next block
Identify every living thing you see.
Include plants of any kind.
And insects.
Include water.
In the medium of your choice, notate the entity and its relation to the earth as you understand it. Be quick.
First thought, best thought.
Do not buy anything.
For the next block
Walk. Feel gravity release you/pull you back.
For the next block
Breathe. Feel oxygen enter your lungs/carbon dioxide exit your nostrils.
For the next block
Pick up samples.
Do not buy anything.
How many blocks to the library? Alternate objects, biota, nothingness, steps, breath, and sampling ‘til you arrive.
Do not space out.
* Hour No. 3
At the library, look up one or more of the following. You may use print or electronic media:
Peter Bogdanovich, Paper Moon, 1973
“Bosch!”
David Bowie (or Cat Power in a car commercial), A Space Oddity, 1969 (or 2008)
David Bowie, Moonage Daydream, 1971
Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon, 1947
“Patsy Cline! Blue Moon of Kentucky!”
“George Clinton. ’Nuf said.”
“For some reason I think of Joseph Cornell.”
“First that comes to mind is The Weather Project by Eliasson, cause you know, it’s a star.”
“Giant steps are what we take/walking on, walking on the moon…”
Billie Holiday, “Moonlight in Vermont,” 1959
Haiku by Basho (1644-1694), Buson (1716-1783), Issa (1763-1827)
“There must be moons in Hokusai—Views of Mt. Fuji—no?”
Homer, The Odyssey, c. 600 BC
Ron Howard, Apollo 13, 1995
Michael Jackson, Moonwalk performance, 1983
“Jekyll & Hyde, perhaps?”
Nina Katchadourian, Indecision on the Moon, 2001
Philip Kaufman, The Right Stuff, 1983
John Keats, “Bright Star,” 1819
Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
Andrea Lawlor and Bernadine Mellis, The Odyssey: 24 Films + 24 Characters (Pocket Myths), 2007
Ursula LeGuin, “Sur: A Summary Report of the Yelcho Expedition to the Antarctic, 1909-1910,” 1982
Magnetic Fields, “I Don’t Believe in the Sun,” 1999
"Hmmm...Maya made a mobile of glow in the dark stars and planets and suspended it above Kai’s bed with blue painters tape, but I feel fairly sure this isn't what you had in mind."
Mexico, images of La virgen de Guadalupe, beginning 1531
Demetrius Oliver, “Observatory,” 2008
Eugene O’Neill, A Moon for the Misbegotten, 1947
Yuka Otani, Sugarmoon, 2006
“How about Maxfield Parrish?”
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, 1973
Sylvia Plath, The Moon and the Yew Tree, 1961
Dan Price, Instructions for a Goodbye, 2009
“Isn’t there a Rousseau with a big moon in it?”
“Yeah. And an Albert Pinkham Ryder? A seascape?”
Larissa Sansour, A Space Exodus, 2008
Maurice Sendak, Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or, There Must Be More to Life, 1967
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II ii, c. 1590
Mary Godwin Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, shared journal (Mary as “Moon”), 1814-16
Ward Shelley, Mir2, 2001
James Thurber, Many Moons, 1944
"Does van Gogh's Starry Night count, or are you looking for a more scientific bent?”
“Ah—Starry Starry Night, right?”
“I know this is weird—but there’s an earthy-feministy, 70s-ish Alice Walker poem that ends, ‘Moon! We hoped you were safe!’”
Barbara G. Walker, “Moon,” The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 1983
“Moon” (disambiguation page), Wikipedia
Virginia Woolf, “The Eclipse,” 1927
Frank Zappa and Moon Unit Zappa, Valley Girl, 1982
Write to the author(s) of the piece(s) you have chosen, discussing your project and theirs. Ask questions, offer feedback, compare notes, etc. Display your letter(s) in your project space. If your interlocutor(s) reply, display their answer(s).
Answers from dead artists may be fabricated if you so desire.
Any piece you choose to research for which you find no information may be notated as “nothing” in a manner of your own choosing.
Responses to all other works should be addressed directly to the artists and actually sent. Make an effort to find phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
* Hour No. 4
Go to a public place that appeals to you, where you can talk to strangers without difficulty. (You may do this in your project space if you prefer.)
Pick a number between 1 and 238,857 (distance from earth to moon in miles).
Ask that many people to name the first thing that comes to mind regarding the moon (stars, space, exploration). Record, in the medium of your choice, all answers including “nothing.”
* Hour No. 5 (to run concurrently with Hour No. 4)
Ask the same people, “Have you ever been abandoned? Will you tell me about it?”
Record their answers.
Adapt these instructions for the moon.
Thursday, November 12th- 4:00 pm – base camp
VIRGINIE BOBIN
“A Small Step”
When she lost herself in reveries, sitting in her base camp, she always pictured the same scene – a slightly trembling, blurry, old-fashioned TV image in slow-motion that she would indefinitely rewind in her mind: a close-up of her foot hitting the ground of the moon, and a light cloud of dust arising from the encounter that would float around her astronaut shoe until it was erased. And rewind. And again. Rewind. And again and again and again.
I don’t really like this woman who hides herself behind a shiny white helmet, dreams about outdated mythologies of faded virility, and designs fashion accessories for the moon like housewives in the fifties would knit for hypothetic progenies to kill time while waiting in apathetic despair for their car dealer husbands to come back home … I kind of despise her, even. She pisses me off, I would like her to stand up and go out and…
But still, she was a smart, witty woman. She even carried a certain sense of irony, of playful cynicism that would suddenly bloom through absurd acts and sparkles of self-critique. Maybe that’s why she never went to the moon in the end? It is too down-to-earth of a dream…
So she stood up and went out of the base camp into Wooster Street. She headed North until she reached the 141 (she could not help glancing at a few fashion stores on the way). She rang the entry phone and waited for the elevator to take her to the second floor. She walked into the room where a hidden treasure of 250 cubic yards of earth has been laying since 1977. The small glass wall was still too high and her astronaut costume did not allow any flexibility or, even more important, grace (something to think about). Then she simply, quickly – it was forbidden – put her gloved hand on the surface of the 22 inch-high carpet of dirt. And although no one could hear because of the helmet, she laughed. Mankind would probably never give a shit, but she would certainly be the first woman astronaut to put her hand on Earth.
Friday, November 13th - Check time on http://twitter.com/lostastro - Base Camp
Author: Mark Beasley
“A Seagull in Manhattan OR Astral Future Projections in a Cold Climate”
¨
The female cosmonaut group formed by Nikolai Kamanin had, by 1969, dissolved. Its peculiar yet particular beginnings, a barbecue in Florida for visiting Soviet astronauts, had revealed through conversation that the Americans were poised to send a woman into space. Armed with the imminent threat of American success, Kamanin hastily established the program and within months of his return from that brightly lit and loose-lipped barbecue the first woman had entered space. For three days, although radio contact with the astronaut was lost, the Soviets led the race to space.
For Valentina the news of the groups’ closure was met with a mixture of disappointment and though she would never voice it, certain relief. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, first woman in space, hero of the Soviet Union, selected from 400 to pilot Vostock 6, had carried the secret of that journey with her for many years. The resultant dreams were no longer so vivid, the memories trapped in REM sleep had been softened by time, yet the seeming hallucination had felt as real as the day that she had met her late husband, the cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev. A coupling forged in the heady days of Party certainty, future vision and the sweaty confines of the anti-gravity chamber. After much discussion about the silent com-link on Vostock 6 the lack of contact with Valentina, flight call-sign seagull, was dismissed by the majority as nothing more than faulty wiring described in some and more knowing quarters as the silencing fear brought about by deep space. The reality was a little stranger, a future prediction of a world consumed by acceleration, saccharin smoke and empty encounters.
For what seemed like days, Vostock 6 had drifted in orbit, and repeated attempts to communicate fell upon deaf ears. Valentina relished the silence; each passing hour she felt closer to understanding some emergent truth, and nothing learnt upon the ground could possibly allow for this. Hours became days and the silence stretched on in diamond studded black velvet. Straining to catch the movement of the earth through the triangulated window of the craft, her body arched and fell. And there it was, suddenly the distant com-link calls of ‘seagull’ were replaced by wailing sirens. Bright shafts of light revealed a vivid blue sky. Erected signage boomed admission, humanity’s needs written large upon a printed billboard. Reflecting some darker desire, a humanity born through the desire for impact, yet lacking in communal compassionate understanding. What was this place? Her space suit no longer functioned, the air that filled her lungs now acrid, burnt and sweet. The intense architectural surge of this new and strange environ lapped over every inch of her prone body. This was a literal landscape whereupon all poetic tendency was crushed by the overwhelming desire to communicate, to sell, to invade, to crush reflective thought. Her body felt distant, different somehow, as if served by a falsehood…
Saturday November 14th – 7:00 pm – Base Camp
Author: Michael Schulman
“Lost Astronaut”
19:00 E.S.T.: It’s a weeknight, but the lost astronaut is feeling restless. She looks around her base camp: it’s dusty. She takes out a vacuum and cleans for a bit. Vroom, vroom—the sound reminds her of blast-off. She starts to feel envious of the dust particles being sucked up into the vortex. She wishes she could untether gravity. She wants to reach upward. She wants to ascend. It’s time to leave the house.
19:15 E.S.T.: The lost astronaut leaves the base camp and heads uptown on the N train. She hates being underground; the only direction she cares about is up. Up! Up! Everything is so heavy-looking on the subway. Steel, plastic, people.
19:45 E.S.T.: She arrives at Times Square and begins walking north on Broadway. There are people everywhere. At 45th Street she enters the Marriott Marquis and takes the escalator up to the main atrium. She watches the people sliding up and down in the glass elevators—tourists, mostly. She goes to the elevator bank and presses the up button. She waits for a glass elevator and boards it.
20:00 E.S.T.: This is more like it! She rides up the elevator, pressing her face against the glass, as the shoppers and sushi-eaters below disappear into tiny specks. This is what she was promised; this is what she understands. When she gets to the top she presses another button and goes down. She rides up and down, up and down, living vertically, watching the world bob around her. People get off and on. Some are children, maybe. They regard her quizzically. She smiles at them. She rides the elevator for quite a while: up and down, up and down. Mesmerizing.
21:00 E.S.T.: Finally she decides to break through to the stratosphere. She gets off at the top floor: the View, New York’s only revolving restaurant. She asks the hostess for a table for one, near the window, please. She sits and watches the world go by, this time horizontally. She can see it all: the tops of the buildings, the billboards, the horizon. A waitress asks her if she’d like anything. She orders a cocktail—not because she wants it, but just so she can stay for a while and watch the city spin.
21:15 E.S.T.: Her cocktail comes. She ignores it mostly. She draws the moon on a cocktail napkin. She notices the diners surrounding her: many are laughing, drinking, with Playbills in their hands. She would love to have seen a show. Is “Mamma Mia!” still playing? She isn’t sure. She sips her cocktail. Then sips again. Pretty soon she’s downed it and she’s ready to do something else. She asks for the check and pays. On her way out she finds the dance floor near the buffet table. There’s music playing. She dances by herself, slowly, like nobody’s watching. Is anybody watching?
21:45 E.S.T.: She exits the restaurant and takes the elevator down to the lobby. As she hits the street again she realizes she’s a bit tipsy. She walks east on 45th Street until she hits Grand Central Terminal. Ah, yes! She remembers: there is something to be seen here. Inside, she descends the marble stairs and stands in the center of the station. She looks heavenward. There it is: the great blue. Stars. She has read that the zodiac is painted backwards on the Grand Central ceiling, for reasons unknown. She rotates her body, looking up at it. Without even realizing, she has raised her arms above her body.
22:00 E.S.T.: Whoa, head rush! Maybe it’s time to go home. She enters the subway platform and catches the downtown 6 train. The people on the subway look lighter now, like they might float away. Or maybe it’s just her. She thinks about the particles of dust floating in the vacuum. Suddenly she has an idea. She gets off in the East Village and walks to Planet Rose, the karaoke bar.
22:30 E.S.T.: She gets a piece of paper and writes down the name of her favorite Frank Sinatra tune. The karaoke DJ says it’ll be a little bit of a wait, so she goes to the bar and orders a beer. Her heart starts to race. She wants, more than anything now, not to elevate herself but the entire room. Someone is singing a karaoke standard: “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” maybe, or “Sweet Caroline.” These people have no taste. Finally she hears the DJ say, “Lost Astronaut…?” Showtime.
23:00 E.S.T.: She takes the microphone and looks out at the expectant crowd. As her song begins, she feels pining and exhilaration, all at once. The loneliest thing about not being on the moon, she realizes, is the relentless yearning. Her only solution now is to share it with a crowd of drunks. So be it, she thinks. She starts to sing, longingly…
Fly me to the moon.
Let me play among the stars.
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars.
In other words, hold my hand.
In other words, baby, kiss me.
Fill my heart with song,
And let me sing for ever more.
You are all I long for,
All I worship and adore.
In other words, please be true!
In other words, I love you…
Sunday, November 15th - 11:00 am at Lincoln Center (entrance) and 5:00 pm at JFK T5 (Main Entrance)
Author: Angie Keefer
Existentialism Is a Humanism We Choose to Go to the Moon for Alicia Framis
Two readings, comprised of interwoven excerpts from President Kennedy’s We Choose to Go to the Moon speech (1962), and Jean-Paul Sartre’s seminal Existentialism Is a Humanism (1945) speech, in which he explained the relevance of individual choice for all mankind, should be given by the Lost Astronaut on the same day at Lincoln Center and at JFK T5. She will need a bullhorn.
Monday, November 16th – 5:00 am – Unknown place
Author: Katie Paterson
Search for the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatas)
Ask for directions, and log the responses…follow your instinct ‘til you find it.