OUMUAMUA

In 2017, the first interstellar object was sighted passing through our solar system. The mysterious object, named OUMUAMUA and resembling a cigar-shaped rock, was moving at an unusually high speed and against the laws of physi cs, so that scientists led by Avi Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory & Computation at Harvard University, saw in OUMUAMUA evidence of extraterrestrial life. OUMUAMUA was a probe that had entered our solar system to collect data. But what was to b e collected? According to which criteria do alien intelligences look at our solar syst em, at the earth, at humans? The Marc Sinan Company takes up this thought experiment in its p roject OUMUAMUA and develops with the post-anthropocentric sound sculpture a transcultural counter-design to the colonial and anthropocentric world view. The peculiarity lies in the com-plete neutrality through which OUMUAMUA views the world and acoustic phenomena: Whether the barking of a dog, a symphony by Beethoven, street n oise or the rustling of leaves in the wind, everything seems to be of equal value to OU MUAMUA.The interactive sculpture absorbs all sounds in its environment and destroys hierarchies by creating a sound cosmos that reproduces all input with equal legitimacy. Only the dissolution of human categories allows us to answer philosophical and ethnic questions in a value-free way, without excluding the foreign/other. 

Marc Sinan

Marc Sinan is a composer and guitarist. He lives and works in Berlin and pub-lishes the recordings of his works on ECM Records. His works—mostly full-length—address current socio-political issues and have been performed at various institutions and festivals. In his work, he explores new ways of collaboration between artists in a transcultural and transmedial context.