Fwd: The First Intergalactic Art Exposition

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jonathon Keats <[email protected]>

For Immediate Release

EXTRATERRESTRIAL ABSTRACT ART DETECTED BY RADIOTELESCOPE
Conceptual Artist Jonathon Keats to Curate First Intergalactic Art Exposition

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Concluding centuries of speculation about
extraterrestrial intelligence,
conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has discovered that a radio signal
detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico contains artwork
broadcast from deep space. Initially dismissed by researchers as
meaningless, the transmission – which originated between the
constellations Aries and Pisces thousands of years ago – may be the most
significant addition to the artistic canon since the Mona Lisa, or even
the Venus of Willendorf.

Painstakingly decoded and converted into digital images by Mr. Keats, the
artwork will be displayed for the first time, later this month, on the
planet's most ubiquitous exhibition platform, currently in the hands of
one third of the world population: the cellphone. Distributed through a
special agreement with pioneering online art gallery StartMobile.net, the
images will be available in an unlimited edition for download as cellphone
wallpaper. "This is the ultimate outsider art," notes Mr. Keats.
"Historically our culture has ignored extraterrestrial artistic
expression. As curator of the First Intergalactic Art Exposition, my job
is to make it available to everyone."

The discovery of artwork from beyond the Milky Way did not come as a
surprise to Mr. Keats, who has written about outsider art often as the art
critic for San Francisco Magazine. "It's a familiar story," he says.
"Scientists expect intelligent life elsewhere in the universe to behave
just like them. Since scientists are mathematical, they expect
extraterrestrials to broadcast Boyle's Law or the Pythagorean theorem."

Mr. Keats began seriously to question the wisdom of these assumptions
while conducting independent research earlier this year. "If I were an
extraterrestrial trying to communicate with beings elsewhere in the
universe, I certainly wouldn't transmit something they already knew," he
argues. "I'd try to express something about myself, as profound as
possible, in the most universal language I could imagine: I'd send art."

From this novel perspective, Mr. Keats reviewed one of the most promising
candidate signals formerly dismissed by astronomers, SHGb02+14a. By using
radio frequency to determine color, and time signature to determine
orientation, he discovered that patterns incomprehensible scientifically
were in fact extraterrestrial abstract artwork.

Sources close to Mr. Keats indicate that the StartMobile project is only
the beginning for
intergalactic art, hinting that preliminary discussions about exhibiting
extraterrestrial abstract
artwork in major cultural institutions are already underway. "While it's
too soon to predict how this
work will change our understanding of intergalactic diversity, or the
commonality of intelligent life
everywhere, I believe that ongoing interplanetary exchange is crucial,"
Mr. Keats argues, urging people to purchase extraterrestrial abstract
artwork as cellphone wallpaper – at a cost of $1.99 per download – and
vowing that the money will be put to good use: One percent of all proceeds
will be set aside in a special fund to compensate extraterrestrial artists
for their contribution to world culture, and an additional one tenth of
one percent will be used to establish a satellite museum, orbiting Earth,
to broadcast terrestrial artwork throughout the cosmos.

Represented by Modernism Gallery in San Francisco, Jonathon Keats is known
for his pragmatic approach to art. Most recently, he personalized the
metric system. He has also previously attempted to genetically engineer
God in a petri dish, in collaboration with researchers at the University
of California, and petitioned Berkeley to pass a fundamental law of
logic– A=A – a work commissioned by the city's annual Arts Festival. For
more information, please see www.modernisminc.com/artists/jonathon_keats
or view sample media coverage at the following URLs:

http://www.kqed.org/spark/artists-orgs/jonathonke.jsp

http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-08-18/news/feature.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/10/20/god.DTL

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65066,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3217423.stm

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60757,00.html

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2003/scene_marapr03_slater.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/13/BA200448.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/16/DD58324.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/10/31/DD25908.DTL

. . .
StartMobile Gallery can be accessed online at www.startmobile.net. Media
queries or requests for
images should be directed to Mr. Keats at [email protected]

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