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juliana_aldous's review against another edition
2.0
A vanity project with an interesting premise--what If we were all gone and all that was left orbiting the earth were satellites? The author created a time capsule and chose 100 photos to be etched in silicon to be deposited in a satellite to represent us. Nice premise--think back to Carl Sagan and Nasa's addition to rockets such as Voyager to give a hello.
But I found the choice of photos to be a joke--literally. In the intro there is talk that it is ludicrous to think that any "other" coming across our rockets would have the same mathematics and be able to interpret our images and maps. The author mentions one sort of puzzling drawing in the caves of Lascaux. And so I assume based on this he and others gathered together a most random set of 100 photographs. Nothing really iconic or organized in any fashion.
Rosetta Stone this is not. Modern art, yes.
I did want to add that I do like Paglen's other projects on Black Ops.
But I found the choice of photos to be a joke--literally. In the intro there is talk that it is ludicrous to think that any "other" coming across our rockets would have the same mathematics and be able to interpret our images and maps. The author mentions one sort of puzzling drawing in the caves of Lascaux. And so I assume based on this he and others gathered together a most random set of 100 photographs. Nothing really iconic or organized in any fashion.
Rosetta Stone this is not. Modern art, yes.
I did want to add that I do like Paglen's other projects on Black Ops.
thomcat's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting, and I appreciate the reasons behind some of the pictures. I liked the story of other artifacts, and the scientific expectations of how long they (and this) could last. Something about the picture selection was just jarring, though.
mrjoe's review
5.0
The Last Pictures picks up where Carl Sagan left off with the photos sent into space on Voyager. Paglen updates mankind's portfolio with a new selection of 100 images. And then he goes to MIT to figure out how to make this transmission last a long time. The portfolio gets attached to a satellite and launched into orbit. This is some big "what if" thinking that is backed up by some serious doing. Highly recommended.
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