Six Hands

Spaceships can land vertically, horizontally, or use parachutes and airbags, as with rovers and capsules. Controlled descents rely on retropropulsion, requiring precision, friction, transformation, and ultimately arrival - the shift from vast motion to stillness. The first controlled landing on another planet was Viking 1 on Mars in 1976, the same year the Rubik’s Cube was officially launched in stores in Hungary.

Decks of cards likely originated in China in the 9th century, spreading to Europe via Egypt. Shuffling can serve as a metaphor for chance, fate, randomness, and recombination - each shuffle creating a new possible universe. A conventional deck has 8×10⁶⁷ possible arrangements, a number vastly smaller than the atoms in the observable universe, yet unimaginably larger than the number of seconds since the Big Bang.

Six cards were chosen from a deck created by THIRTYMINUTES. Jeff Gavett and Charlotte Mundy both responded to these six cards. Most of the text you will hear was generated from their reflections, and in the case of V. Soldiers, the text was written entirely by Charlotte. Many thanks to Ekmeles, for guiding this musical spacecraft safely to your ears.

Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble