Cath Campbell

‘Night and Day’ (2008), was made for ‘The Golden Record’, an exhibition curated by Mel Brimfield and launched at Collective Gallery, as part of the Edinburgh Festival 2008. “The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. The Voyager spacecraft will take about 40,000 years to come near another star, 'near' meaning in this case within around 1.7 light-years' distance; hence, if other beings do not come in the direction of the spacecraft to meet them, it will take at least that long for the Golden Record to be found. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.” (Wikipedia) For ‘The Golden Record’ artists were asked to re-interpret the original titles. Night and Day continues Cath’s interest in renderings of architectural space, and illustrates the UN building at day and night. The building is drawn twice, then laser cut from 1mm mirrored steel, the final drawings are reversed and sit on a small IKEA shelf. The work has toured as part of the exhibition to The Collection, Lincoln Museum, Lincoln, UK.