Welcome. And congratulations. (Whatever your native intellectual state, I flatter myself that a certain measure of ingenuity was required to locate and decipher this message, not to mention some good old-fashioned persistence. Comforting to know that curiousity isn’t confined to us.) Regrettably, all I have to offer at your journey’s end is this short tale. It will, I fear, seem insufficient reward for your efforts, but it is all the story I have to tell. It is real and true, if that helps. It will, at least, explain the image you have mined so assiduously to find this message.
(My image… yes… to get here, you must have started there, and I do hope you looked at it carefully before you began dissecting and decrypting and tunnelling into it, because it is the real thing of value here, not these words. The image is the real hero of this tale. Stop reading now and go back, go back and contemplate it…)
Now, what am I doing here? I was born on the same day – November 30, 1956 – when the first viable commercial video recording in history was made. On the very day that I was pushing my way into the world, a television program was recorded on videotape in New York and later replayed over the network to audiences in California. Two breakthroughs. It was a big day.
I didn’t learn of this near-simultaneous birth of me and my medium until sometime in my 30’s, but I took it as a propitious sign that the life-path I’d stumbled into wasn’t entirely coincidental. A respectable number of respectable critics and academics have said I use the medium like no-one else, that I speak video with a fluency, an innate understanding, that few can hope to attain. To which I casually reply: we’re practically twins, what else would you expect?
In short, I am a visual artist, working largely in the realm of the electronic motion picture, who has enjoyed considerable acclaim throughout much of the world. It was on the basis of this reputation that I was invited to contribute to The Capsule. And if you are wondering why the “undisputed master of the moving image, a magician at media manipulation” (not my words) has left a legacy of a single, silent, static frame – well you might. I will explain the image in a moment, but first of all, I must – because I fear no-one else will and I am not being edited – explain this eccentric little package it arrived in, which we christened The Capsule.
Do all civilizations number time? Ours certainly did. The specifics of how is all utterly irrelevant here but suffice to say that we had an elaborate system for marking and describing units of time that ranged from the inconceivably small to the immeasurably large. As I record these words, it is the year 2025, which represents a significant anniversary, one we called a “quarter century”. It is a perfectly arbitrary but nonetheless notable milestone of which the average person might see three or four in a lifetime. But this particular occasion has special resonance for our community. That we have survived at all to greet this year is something of a cause for celebration.
Not so very long ago, we were engulfed in a planetary frenzy of optimism and hope as we approached the previous milestone – a big one – the year 2000. Naively, we anticipated an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity that would embrace all nations, all peoples. Instead, our whole world was crippled in a firestorm of conflict such as we could never have imagined. All hope, all optimism vanished in a moment, and stayed hidden for years.
Since that time, we have been rebuilding, gradually and painfully. As of this year, I can proudly report that our global society has managed, by the definitions laid out in the UN’s Special Declaration of 2009, to live in a state of “technical peace” for a full five years (five years!). In celebration of this extraordinary accomplishment – which conveniently coincides with the quarter century – the World Press Council suggested we produce a Capsule. A repository of the finest thoughts and visions of the world’s most noble thinkers and visionaries. A proclamation that We, the People of Earth, are still here, still striving, still advancing. Still worth a moment’s thought.
And to whom would this inspiring collection be sent? We would send it, quite literally, to the stars.
The idea of sending messages to some distant space has been a staple of our collective mythology for centuries – we call it “message in a bottle” syndrome – but never before had we had the technology to attempt it on so far-reaching a scale. In the last couple of decades we’ve made extraordinary advances in rocket propulsion, all motivated, needless to say, by military objectives. Liberated by the “anything goes – money is no object” tactical arms development frenzy of the early years of the millennium, the lab folks developed ever better methods of sending things into space to the point where we can now ship small payloads distances that were unimaginable only a decade ago. Now, with a fragile new mantle of peace draped about the planet, an international lobby sought to find a loftier purpose for these tools. The Capsule Project was a perfect fit.
And so here we are. I was invited by the World Press Council – as an artist of “global renown and respect” (their words)- to contribute to this noble and ambitious project. And what was I asked to contribute? “A message that symbolizes the true spirit and enterprise and ideals of humankind, a message that proudly communicates these fine qualities to any neighbour, from this galaxy or beyond, who may happen upon this greeting.”
Oh dear.
(Have you looked at my picture yet? Or has the compelling sweep of my narrative kept you enthralled? Listen: these words are nothing, worthless. The image is all. Go back now, and look, look, LOOK at it.)
The image shows a structure we call a bridge. It connects two separated places, spanning a chasm or crossing a waterway. The bridge provides a way across, or, perhaps, a place to meet in the middle. A bridge is as much a symbol as a structure. This one is called Stari Most, which means, in the language of its locals, simply Old Bridge. It spans a river in a troubled little land called Bosnia, where it links the territories of two neighbouring tribes. It is also, as you can plainly see, an object of exceptional beauty, a pure and perfect synthesis of art and architecture, form and function. It has been called the most beautiful bridge ever built. It is a poem in stone.
Or rather, was. Stari Most – old bridge, indeed – was built in 1566, several centuries ago. It managed to endure in that war-prone land for nearly five hundred years, but it no longer exists. It was blasted to pieces just a few years ago – 1993, for those who care – as the residents of that sad country once again fell to slaughtering their neighbours and re-segregating their lands.
And that is about all I have to say. Yes, this is the end. Having read that, now – finally – you’ll probably go back and look at the picture. But I’m afraid you are too late. It is no longer there. That’s right. As you back out of this little maze of encryption that I built to protect my story, you’ll arrive at the image just in time to see the bridge explode and disappear. The footage is low res, antique and amateur, but by God it’s real. And it’s final.
It is, in the end, as apt a symbol of “the true spirit and ideals of humankind” as I could think of. We strive for years, for lifetimes, for centuries, to create objects of great and enduring beauty, and then – in a moment, and for the most ignoble of reasons – we destroy them. We leave as legacy a roll call of demolished treasures, a lucid testament to all that we are capable of. The temples of Luxor. The Buddhas of Bamiyan. The Uffizi. Macchu Picchu. The Sistine Chapel.
Stari Most.
Pray for us.