András Csefalvay — Unknown asteroid

In the collection of photography and other media there are three works/videos by András Cséfalvay – Light of the World (2016) already presented in the virtual gallery1, Unknown asteroid (2017) and Godefroy de Bouillon (2008 – 2018). Although each work communicates a different kind of reflection on the world, they all share common elements of meditativeness and humanism.

In the over four-minute video Unknown asteroid (2017), we see a fictional asteroid that was first created in the mind and later in the computer of András Cséfalvay. The “talking unknown asteroid ” slowly speaks (thinks out loud) to us in English:

“I am burning my lonely way to the sun.
I approach slowly. 
The world does not yet know anything.
Or, or does it? 
Does it know anything?
Dinosaurs, a proud dynasty.
That inherited the Earth for a while.
And they speculated on the market.
“What do we do to be counted among the blessed?” they asked.
How are we to be saved?
And they continued to speculate on the market.
The dinosaurs, the proud dynasty.
Who inherited the Earth for a while.
Realised the end is near.
And they continued market speculation.
I draw myself a little nearer. 
My plan is: trajectory around the sun.
But I’m attracted, tempted, asked,
to near off a bit.
To come for a visit.
A speculation makes the future.
By actions we choose, we are drawn near to certain versions of ends. 
And then there’s skies, prices, rocket
The red sky I see, pre-meditated inevitability
Prices rise and the end is near.
And the dinosaurs, stewards of the Earth,
continue market speculation.
Three separate camps call for unity. 
I burn my lone way to the sun, 
and I hear the call: to come!
How can we be saved?
And in the end, it is not in my hands.
I am just an asteroid, rowing through space. 
Each world desires and chooses its own end.
The dinosaurs created a future that must never end.
Each person searched inside, within.
I burn my way again. To Earth.
And unity is nowhere to be found within. 
Unity is outside.”

Cséfalvay’s work reflects very sensitively on topical issues such as ecology, sustainability and the related different ideas of societies about their collective future. Most millennials and older generations have been aware that we live in the Holocene. “This was a geological epoch that began roughly 11,700 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. However, this scientific knowledge is now obsolete as there is a consensus among geologists that a new epoch has begun – the Anthropocene. As its name suggests, the Anthropocene is a stage in the Earth’s evolution whose main drivers are humans. For hundreds of millions of years, geological epochs have begun and ended under the influence of almost unimaginably powerful natural processes, such as the impact of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Today, that asteroid is us.

Scientists disagree on when the Anthropocene began (one popular theory is that it can be dated from the explosions of nuclear bombs in the mid-twentieth century), but many agree that we have already been living in it. We have changed the physical structure of our planet so much that traces of us will be preserved far into the future. Just as we find dinosaur fossils today, it is possible that if aliens visit Earth in millions of years, they will find traces of us, for example in the form of nuclear waste or chemicals left behind in nature.

The Anthropocene may seem like an abstract academic idea, but its impact on life (ours, human life, but also life as a whole) is enormous. Twenty-two years ago, we reflected on what it means to live at the turn of the millennium. But to experience the turning of geological epochs is something much more profound. It is not changing the date on the calendar, it is changing the conditions for life on our planet, it is changing humanity’s chances of survival.

Unlike discussions of individual environmental problems such as climate change or the mass extinction of animal and plant species, thinking about the Anthropocene forces us to focus not only on short-term technical solutions, but also on our changing relationship with nature. Why is it that it is our civilisation’s way of life that has led to such a serious change? What has happened in our culture and politics that has so deeply marked our relationship with the Earth?

The Anthropocene also forces us to think about responsibility. It is a measure of humanity’s collective power over the natural world. The more our power increases, the more we are responsible for the consequences of our actions.” (Peter Sutoris)

Cséfalvay’s asteroid resonates fully with anthropological considerations. To what extent are we able to acknowledge our responsibility towards the future? We are living history, and time will tell whether we as a society, but also as individuals, have been able to see change in life, and also to apply it, to fight for life, and then to live with it after the changes have been made. How we are able to think of ourselves as bearers of responsibility, of change, of decline. And whether we are able to actively do something with our (self-)awareness. Perhaps this is indeed a great measure of responsibility for progress, our opinions, choices and attitudes. Today, scientists predict that an asteroid will collide with Earth by 2300. Humanity is actively pursuing the asteroid Bennu, which is an imaginary “time capsule”, at the same time a potential threat to the world (scientists have calculated the end of the world at 2182) if we don’t take care of that end sooner by our self-centred and expansionist behaviour based on a sense of power. Maybe it is us, the Unknown Asteroid.