Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
A space odyssey
|
"And what if tomorrow I were to pave the path for you, descendants of my descendants? And what if KEO began to pen down our thoughts for our distant grandchildren, to let them witness our lives? And what if, from this big book, we began to discov er, one page after another, more about each other?"
|
SO BEGINS the most unique space odyssey, a space-time capsule, a project mind-boggling in its conception and its aspirations - the KEO - a passive satellite that will be sent to space only to return to Earth after a period of 50,000 years.
The KEO, to be launched into the outer orbit around planet Earth, by Ariane space by end of 2003, will take with it messages sent by people - made anonymous - with a copy preserved on the earth, easily accessible to all through the Internet. And in this last aspect, lies the unique blend of contemporary space science and human sensibility.
Whatever else may be the nature of human civilisation in the year 52,002 (50,000 years from today), it cannot be one sans human memory - or the urge to seek what lay before.
KEO aims to blend memory with modern science and technology. Little wonder then, that this project has been voted the UNESCO Project of the 21st Century.
KEO will record messages of people all over the world in over 180 countries, in 60 languages irrespective of economic, social, cultural status of the person sending that message.
The project will be a global convergence of images, words, signifying the diversities in our cultures, thoughts, expressions, dreams and aspirations - to be sent into space towards an unpredictable, unseen, unimagined future.
In fact, the term KEO by itself represents the diversity of human race and its universality at the same time. For, the term has been given keeping in mind the most common sounds occurring in languages spoken around the world- `k', `e', `o'.
Jean-Marc Philippe, a scientist with the sensibility of an artist, who originally conceived of KEO, says KEO "is like an Impressionist painting - every message in it is like a little spot of a large impressionist canvas."
In Hyderabad as part of the promotional tour of KEO, with the assistance of the French Embassy and the Alliance Francaise networks in major cities, Jean-Marc Philippe, accompanied by the Director of Communications, KEO, Florence Bazenet and Coordinator, Communications, Sejal Gupta, spent some time speaking about the idea and its implications for technology and human civilisation.
The basic idea of KEO emerged - from the urge to create harmony between technology and human emotion and to "give shape to human memory, with little help from technology."
For Jean-Marc, KEO is an amalgam of archaeology, humanism, technology, dreams. "I have been living with the KEO idea since the past seven years ."
Ask him about what inspired him to conceive it, he says, "inside each of our minds there is a dream - it was mine to invite people to share their feelings about the meaning of life - to build an archaeological treasure; to know that we are all responsible for what comes even 50,000 years from today. Everything is so fragile that we do not know what follows today. KEO, thus, is essentially a project about `today' rather than the distant future."
KEO is already becoming a global phenomenon - they have had exhibitions, conferences in several parts of the world, including major cities in India.
The KEO will carry several archaeological gifts - a Titanium sphere presenting the contours of earth's seas and continents, a mosaic of faces engraved on a glass plate, representing the diversity of ethnic groups, diamond with four inclusions of gold, glass disks forming the contemporary library of Alexandria, and so forth.
Florence Bazenet says, "We pin our major hopes on media and educational sectors to spread the message about the KEO.
Children in schools are ever open to new ideas and through them a lot many people - even in the remotest corners of the country - can be part of the KEO."
Adds Jean-Marc, "India has such an old tradition, and civilisation, that it must definitely have its representation in this large cup of dreams."
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
|
