Life looks for life

I’ve never been interested in outer space or the journey of humankind to the moon until I left my country and moved to the U.S. But now, while I’m absorbed by the subject, I realized that what fascinates me is not the scientific part of the journey, it is how mundane the things that astronauts did on the moon can be; they sing, they make jokes, they stumble and fall down, they scoop up samples of lunar dust as if they are cleaning their living room. From this point of view, they’re no longer some robot-like scientists but ordinary human beings like rest of us. In his book Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan writes, “We continue to search for habitants. We can’t help it, life looks for life.” I think that I also unconsciously started to ‘look for life’ in the footages of astronauts on the moon because in a deeper level, I feel as if I can relate to them being extremely far away from “the only home I’ve (they’ve) ever known.” So I ended up making this video by combining the most ordinary moments of astronauts on the moon with my home videos in order to give them a more human and personal touch. 

Directed by: Şirin Bahar DEMIREL

Music composed by Ed HALEY, edited by Tolga GÜRPINAR

Screenings

– e4c Strorefront Screening, 4Culture, Seattle, 

– Projet Konschtkescht, Luxembourg, 2016

– Ephesus Street Video Art Screening, Turkey, 2016

– Le Festival Oodaaq, Rennes&Nantes&St. Malo, France, 2016

– VIDEOFORMES Int’l Digital Art Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 2016

– 10th Streaming Festival, an online filmfest based in Netherlands, 2015

– 5th Under the Subway Video Art Night, New York & Berlin, 2015

– Festival Images Contre Nature, Marseille, France, 2015

– 39th Open-air Filmfest Weiterstadt, Germany, 2015

– Coastal Currents Arts Festival, Altered States Exhibition, UK, 2015 

– Visionaria, Italy, 2015