A Host of People’s “Re-Release Party (The Golden Record)” @ Hyperallergic
DETROIT — Those who have endured the ravages of online dating know this: it is difficult to make a good first impression. Such concerns are taken to a cosmic level in a new work by the Detroit-based experimental theater collective A Host of People (AHOP). Re-Release Party (The Golden Record) reimagines and stages the process surrounding the 1977 effort, led by Carl Sagan, to create a phonograph record that would communicate the story of life on Earth to extraterrestrials and future humans. The “Golden Record” (so-called because it was literally made from gold) was launched nearly 40 years ago aboard the Voyager space probes on their interstellar reconnaissance mission, which continues to this day. Foreshadowing future generations of online dating profiles, this alien outreach attempted to sum up our dynamic and complex world with messages from world leaders, greetings in many languages, pictures and sounds from across the planet, and a sampling of our music. And you thought meeting your match here on Earth was challenging?