#16 - spacefall
You can listen to the playlist on Spotify or scroll to the end.
The first version of this playlist started five years ago as a soundtrack to a 5-minute VR experience my classmates Peter, Miha, and I built for a class project. As this short, quite dramatic (thanks to Nick’s 5-second venture into voiceacting and Miha’s editing) trailer shows, if you’d tried our homework assignment you would float around in space, in a car, and play music on the radio. On your left wrist is a clunky watch with a 5-minute countdown that says “danger: low oxygen”, as if that would be the only problem there. With no possible solutions, you must spend these 5 minutes vibing to good music and checking out 3D views of the Earth. Boring people try to make VR about lifelike accuracy, workspace productivity, and digital assets, but it’s most fun when you suspend disbelief.
The idea, which I forget whose it was, was inspired by Musk’s then-recent launch of a Tesla into space. (Relatedly, I spent this past summer working on an interactive piece on space debris for the Washington Post, which was recently published. The idea that we have to worry about pollution up there, too, is grim. But it’s a fun article.) In an application for the VR film festival the above trailer was made for, we wrote something I don’t even remember about what the piece meant. Maybe it was a satirical critique of Musk and consumer culture, or something along those lines.
In reality, my favorite part of that little project was that it was just fun, and kind of silly, and that’s all there really was to it. I wasn’t trying to rotate a steering wheel in Unity or playing around with a 3D model of a car to send a message or reflect on broader sociopolitical themes. It was just a homework assignment, and it was just fun.
The other day I wanted to spend some time drawing. As I wondered what to draw, I reflected on this hobby I’ve enjoyed, albeit very sporadically, for pretty much my entire life. I remembered a friend once checking out my sketchbook and going “of course, it’s all political.” As a kid, and more recently, too, I drew when I felt so strongly about and distracted by politics, on loaded anniversarsies and tragic days. But I also drew my favorite Spacetoon cartoons (read: Arabic-dubbed Japanese anime I am convinced is actually Arab) and poor portraits of celebrities and dedications to loved ones and strangers on the internet’s pets off Reddit Gets Drawn and whatever was around me.
When I first committed to inktober (following a 1-word drawing prompt every day of October) a few years ago, I made a few additional rules for myself: I must draw the very first thing that came to mind, I would only spend a few minutes on it, and I wouldn’t care if it was terrible. It helped me let go of my inability to enjoy a hobby because I didn’t have “ideas”, which is really code for “good ideas”, which, whatever that means.
The first track on this space-themed playlist, Space Oddity, reminds me of that fun VR assignment from 5 years ago, a time when I was otherwise sadder and more burdened, working on creative projects with more talented classmates and friends, and just having a good time. And that assignment makes me want to make just-for-fun art, is-this-even-art art, meaningless or meaningful or pseudo-deep, 10-second sketches and excessively elaborate projects. Maybe that seems undirected and non-specific, but sometimes that’s the point.
I can’t remember all the songs off that red space car radio, so much of this playlist is newer additions. I wish I could include BC,NR’s Chaos Space Marine on here, but I am yet to break my no-repetitions rule (it’s on #4 - simulations). And although I’m writing about resisting the urge to find deeper and more pressing meaning in everything, many of these songs do mean a lot to me.
Don’t Panic, for example, meant a lot to me growing up, and is relevant due to this fun fact I learned through Pierre, who taught that same VR class: “On 19 July 2011, the song was played as a wake-up call to STS-135 Space Shuttle Atlantis Pilot Doug Hurley as a tribute from his wife and family, marking the last ever wake-up call for a crew visiting the International Space Station from the Space Shuttle fleet.” (Wikipedia)
The playlist ends with Cape Canaveral, which has one of my favorite lyrics:
I watched the stars get smaller tiny diamonds in my memory
I know that victory is sweet even deep in the cheap seats
10 songs
(Spotify)
Space Oddity - David Bowie
Jupiter - Earth, Wind & Fire
Spaceman - The Killers
Superstar - Beach House
Andromeda - Weyes Blood
Don’t Panic - Coldplay
Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space - Spiritualized
Afloat - Storyman
Mercury - Bryce Dessner, James McAlister, Nico Muhly, Sufjan Stevens
Cape Canaveral - Conor Oberst