Is Anybody Out There?

Wonder Women Proposal

On March 10, 1972, a plaque bearing a pictorial “message from mankind” was launched with the Pioneer 10 probe as a form of potential communication with any extraterrestrials who might chance to encounter it. The plaque depicts both male and female nude human beings, with the male figure’s hand raised in greeting. While the male’s genitals are clearly visible, the female’s genitals have been edited out. The original drawing by Linda Salzman Sagan included a “short line indicating the woman’s vulva.” However, this line was later erased as condition for approval by John Naugle, then head of NASA Office of Space Science. The artistic reasoning provided was based on the omission of female genitalia in Greek sculpture.

My proposed project is based on my personal reaction toward this censorship of the female body and also of female artists. What kind of message are we hoping to convey to other entities about our society? What sort of scientific representation is this mutilated female human being? Why should the ancient Greek male idealization of the female body be maintained in the 20^th or 21^st centuries? What would I want to reveal about myself to another life form? How could I convey a message of wonder rather than confusion? My project will be to devise my own “message from womankind.”

The original drawing for the Pioneer plaque showed the man and woman holding hands, but this was changed so that the two humans would not be mistaken for a single creature.  I want to address this problem by revealing a fetus in a woman’s womb, in order to portray woman as a source of life and also as a symbiotic creature.  I will be working on a gold ground (in reference to the gold-anodized plaque) in mixed media, a combination of painting and craft.  In keeping with the Mother of God theme, I want my message to resemble a goddess image or an altarpiece, an object full of beauty and mystery that would inspire devotion or wonder.  I want to express some of my own wonderment at the mysteries of womanhood and of woman as a source of life.