Assembling the Lunar at EXPO: A Collection of Things

Insulating Props

2013

emergency "space" blankets, coat hangers

“If you think you saw it at a garage sale, that’s how you know you don’t want it.”

These are the wise words of a loud-mouthed man with a southern drawl I did not have to go out of my way to over-hear at EXPO Chicago on Saturday. Of the hundreds and hundreds of framed prestige, what I saw that interested me the most might be found at a garage sale, and that’s how I knew I did want it.

As a “satellite” (pun intended, I hope) installation to Assembling Vestages, the Chicago Artist’s Coalition presented Joseph G. Cruz’s installation Assembling the Lunar in their BOLT residency booth at EXPO. Immediately, I was stricken by the large central installation atop a sprawling Indian rug, accompanied by the faint scratching pops of the potently-colored thermal moon vinyl record spinning on the turntable. Sonic translation of the topography of the Farside of the Moon delivers a frequency translation of data collected by a satellite via the National Astronomic Observatory of Japan of the topography of the far side of the moon. The sound is filtered through an amplifier, and the record sleeve sits upright with the iconic Dark Side of the Moon prism slightly faded into a Lysergic moon image.
On an opposing wall hangs a shelf, displaying a microscope. On view under the lens is a microscopic illustration of the night sky on the night of the first moon landing “minus historical presence of awe and pride”. Nearby sits a framed print, Collage of a Landscape we all agree on, but have never known, displaying satellite and computer-rendered imagery of the moons surface. There is something about this landscape that resembles a terrestrial mountain range yet retains a level of removal. The lunar landscape becomes like the Assembled Vestiges—a broken silica mold and bronze slag—the remnants of a sculpture without the sculpture in sight.

The collection of objects in Assembling the Lunar extend a diorama scene of a domestic space in the light of lunar exploration. This vignette tells an unearthly version of our cultural and historical story of the moon through mathematics and relics.
“Things do far more than simply effect what humans do; things transform and impact the specific way in which human beings perceive and understand our situatedness. Mediating representations act as surrogates in that they not only stand in for the thing, but also create a new psychological space for the thing. The simulacrum doesn't give us the real thing, but what it gives us is still real. Not many of us have been to the moon, but we have a general agreement on what the moon is. This is more real than the physical experience of the moon.” x

Cruz’s installation expresses an intersection between science, history, and culture we live on top of our Indian rugs and mantels, and among our garage-sale-worthy things.