”Pioneer” drawing on the wall at Macchina Gallery, Santiago, Chile (about 300 cm in diameter), 2025
is a charcoal drawing created using a pre-prepared stencil. Based on the original technical drawing of the spacecraft’s construction, I developed a graphic depiction of the vehicle that was launched into space in 1972 and 1973 under the name PIONEER. These were the spacecraft Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, to which plaques with pictographic illustrations were attached, indicating the origin of the spacecraft — in case they were intercepted by intelligent life forms in space. The work is one of the components of the transmedia project ”Beyond the Orbit of Change” (see link: https://mariusz-soltysik.com/projects/mandala-of-the-invader-subtitile-beyond-the-orbit-of-change/ though it may also exist as an independent, ephemeral, site-specific drawing.
The plaques generated considerable controversy, beginning with the gesture made by the man (a raised hand), which was not mirrored by the woman — a detail criticized as gender bias (Craig Owens). The arrow form — the trajectory of the spacecraft — was associated with artefacts of hunter-gatherer cultures (as pointed out by Ernst Gombrich). The figures were also widely interpreted as representing white individuals, excluding all others. The project was initiated by Eric Burgess, designed by astronomers Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, with the drawings executed by Linda Salzman Sagan and Jon Lomberg.
Fifty years later, I decided to propose a series of plaques that — in my view — more accurately describe our species, its developmental trajectory, and the conditions on our planet, should any form of intelligent life attempt to communicate with us.

– spoken text consisting of 13 sequences/texts that are randomly selected by an Arduino microcontroller. This is a hypothetical version of the spoken sound signal that would be intercepted by Earth observatories from the PIONEER probe (already outside the galaxy).  Humans constantly send radio signals into space, among other things, which most likely get mixed up, resulting in a jumble of different thoughts ‘arranged’ in time. The microcontroller is equipped with a motion sensor that triggers sequences of randomised texts. When no one is in the room, there is silence. The work is one of the components of the transmedia project ”Beyond the Orbit of Change” (see link: https://mariusz-soltysik.com/projects/mandala-of-the-invader-subtitile-beyond-the-orbit-of-change/


Dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego /
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage