Digital collage, 2019
Earth and Jerry is a re-edited version of a photo taken by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, after its primary mission under NASA’s command. In the image, Earth appears as less than a single pixel. The photo later inspired Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot. By copying and pasting the image of Earth from the original photograph, this work introduces only minimal changes to an image typically seen outside the context of art history. Yet it carries more historical significance than many canonical works. Its alteration and placement within an art context raise questions about how we define and value art, and how those values shape art history. The title Earth and Jerry reflects the artist’s attempt to address our inability to perceive a parallel universe with current technology.
Here is a quote from Carl Sagen in his book Pale Blue Dot published in 1994,
"Look again at that dot, That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.