Free Event
Explore the history and legacy of the Golden Record. Launched in 1977, this record is attached to NASA’s Voyager I and II space probes, which were designed to explore the outer Solar System.
Ancient Beacons Long for Notice is Dario Robleto’s third installment in a trilogy exploring the history and legacy of the Golden Record. Launched in 1977, this record is attached to NASA’s Voyager I and II space probes, which were designed to explore the outer Solar System. The gold discs contain images, languages, music, and sounds representing the diversity of life and cultures on Earth. Created by a team of scientists led by Carl Sagan, the Golden Record was a hopeful gesture, carefully curated to present humanity’s “best face forward” in a first-contact scenario with other intelligent life forms; any traces of war, injustice, famine, or environmental decay were intentionally omitted.
The film examines the implications of this ethos across time and space through new research on a forgotten document: the earliest audio recording of warfare, made in 1918 on the Western Front of WWI. Robleto’s film asks: “What is our moral obligation to fully account for our actions—the good and the bad—in perpetuity, off-planet, and to beings we have yet to confirm exist?”
“The film is full of cross-disciplinary possibilities, and I love bringing many departments across campus together,” Robleto said. “I’m currently working with the Space Institutes and various Humanities Initiatives at Harvard, Duke and Rice University on the film. This includes scientists as well as philosophers, religious studies scholars, historians, linguists and creative writing programs. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Voyagers, and many science and astronomy departments will celebrate this achievement.”
Dario Robleto is an American artist, writer, and filmmaker based in Houston, Texas. His work has been exhibited widely and is held in prominent collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Menil Collection, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His work has been profiled in numerous publications and media outlets, including Radiolab, Krista Tippett’s On Being, and the New York Times. He is currently working on his first book, The Heartbeat at the Edge of the Solar System: Science, Emotion, and the Golden Record, co-authored with Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts, which will be published by Scribner in 2027.
Join us for this special screening and Q & A live with Dario Robleto live at Marroney Theatre.
Credits
Presented as part of the 2026-27 Visiting Artists & Scholars Endowment (VASE) lecture series. The School of Art focuses on bringing diverse artists and scholars from around the world to our campus. These artists and scholars bring their own unique influences to the program by engaging with community members, students, and faculty through salons, lectures, and exhibitions.
