Cosmic Art Installation: Humanity

The gallery was abuzz as it always was when a new installation opened its doors. Collectors and curators flocked to the space station in droves, eager to see – and perhaps purchase – some of the elusive items the company’s latest expedition had uncovered.

They would be the first to get a peek at the art of civilizations that may have existed far before their time and, should they have packed enough credits, they might even get to call themselves the holder of a genuine replica courtesy of the Cosmic Art Recovery Corporation’s master analysts and craftsmen.

While critical voices smeared the pieces as ‘But a replica’, the cultured classes appreciated them for what they were: The only copies that would ever see the light of day, the original file tucked away safely in the servers of the corporation, protected by state-of-the-art security systems and a private fleet that certainly was nothing to sneeze at.

What did it matter that it was ‘but a copy’ as the masses claimed? It was the copy made by the hands of the most talented craftsmen in the entire galaxy. For that reason, one could even say that, if anything, it was even more of a collector’s item than the original.

But, while the server’s security might have been top-notch, it seemed the installations security was less so. A janitor had sneaked some pictures of the stunning art pieces for the world to see. While the incident had drawn mockery from the unknowing masses, the smile on the corporation representative’s face suggested that perhaps, while the janitor might have lost his job, he might just be a bit richer than before.

So, with enthusiasm stoked by the glimpses of the artworks they had already gotten, they had gathered. Waiting for the representative to cut the red tape and guide them through the halls. And while perhaps their companies were embroiled in a bitter trade war, today they all stood united in their appreciation of the arts.

The anticipation was palpable as minutes turned to second and seconds slowly ticked down. Nervous glances wandered over the gold embroidered letters displaying the subjects of the installation. “Humans”.

As the well-groomed representative lifted the golden scissors and cut the tape, a small sigh of release washed through the crowd, only to be replaced with new tension as the large polished metal doors were pulled open, sliding smoothly to reveal the palace of the arts within.

Every last person walked slowly. They wanted to rush inside, but dignity forbade them. So, they followed the representative, their eyes glancing around the room as they spoke of their excitement in hushed whispers.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The representative opened his arms wide towards the crowd. “We’ve all come together here in our appreciation of the finest pieces of art. What I have the pleasure of presenting to you today are the recreations of the most famed artworks by the species of ‘humanity’, painstakingly recreated by the hands of our master craftsmen to be as authentic as possible.” His voice seemed to echo through the room as he spoke. Two young women stood at the first frame, waiting for the man’s command to pull down the cloth that blanketed the artwork beneath.

“Before I introduce the species to you, I wish to unveil our first work of art as it pertains to them.” He turned to the women. “I you please.”

In perfect synchronisation they tugged at the string, the fabric gliding down softly and soundlessly to reveal what lay beneath.

‘Oh’s and ‘ah’s echoes through the room as the crowd was gazed at the alien specimen in admiration. Its limbs were stretched wide as it gazed at the viewer, his body framed by both square and circle. At first glance it seemed as if the creature had had four arms and four limbs, but on closer inspection one could see the hallmarks of a detailed anatomical drawing, each muscle carefully proportioned and each line drawn with deliberation. Writing was placed above and below the drawing. Was it… Integrated? The top of the circle seemed to indent into the writing. How peculiar.

“Humans, or ‘Humanity’ as they called their species was a civilization, that regrettably went extinct around three millennia before our probes first discovered their colonies. They had reached the early space age and were starting their first expansion onto other planets when, unfortunately, a gamma-ray burst destroyed their home planet and the vast majority of their population. The remaining colonies held out for several decades but couldn’t sustain themselves indefinitely. Regrettable.”

The room was silent. The Grossari look downright shocked. Their civilization had entered the early space age around the same time. It was a great reminder of their own mortality. How quickly and erratically death could claim lives…

Piercing through the silence, the representative continued. “What you see before you is the ‘Vitruvian Man’, curtesy of one of their greatest minds. He lived during their age of discovery, when their people first set sail on the oceans to discover new land. Yet even then, some of his visions included early plans for rotor-based air travel.”

Another wave of amazement flowed through the crowd. These humans. Could they have stood besides them? If they had survived, might they have pulled the galaxy from this technological stagnancy it found itself in now? A myriad of scenarios floated in everyone’s mind, like thin and elusive fog, whispering of untold futures.

“It became a symbol of progress and the reclamation of what was lost, his continent having recently emerged from a period of regress while under a tyrannical clerical rule.” The representative looked at the pensive faces. All of the attendees seemed to be deep in thought. Some seemed downright sad.

“We shall start the bidding now.”

The attendees looked up. The drawing, it was very simple. Ink on paper stained and grainy. Yet it held something powerful within. The man’s fierce gaze seemed to stare straight into their heart. His chiselled features spoke of defiance, even after his species had fallen.

“Twenty-five.”

“Thirty.”

“Forty-five.”

“Sixty-five.”

“…”

And so, the first audition of the day ended. The genuine replica of a genius’s drawing on paper, sold for sixty-five million credits. They could only guess what the rest would bring, as the representative brought them to the next piece of the exhibition, another two women ready and at attention, the sheet covering another large frame.

“While humans had several schools of realism, they also had a multitude of surrealist depictions of reality and their imagination over their species’ short lifespan. As a comparison to the previous work, this is ‘Figure dans un Fauteuil’ – Figure in a Chair.” As if on cue, the women pulled off the sanguine cloth, taking painstaking care that their clothes didn’t tear the fabric.

What the visitors beheld was a dark picture of a crude rendition of the man in the artwork they had seen before. But this man was daintier – That much was apparent, even though the artwork consisted entirely of cubes and rectangles all coming together to form art so fine and elegant, even the ignorant masses wouldn’t have been able to deny it’s brilliance.

The dark hues of blue and grey were contrasted by light shades of metallic chrome and steely silver. Each line seemed like a fold, three-dimensional, sticking out towards the viewer and throwing a shadow onto the human frame in the centre.

The lines were harsh, but also fine in just the exactly right places, bending slightly with curves, and while the simple geometric forms obfuscated the subject, the colouring and gradients made it stick from the background better than any harsh black outline could have ever done.

It seemed like a delicate artwork made of folding paper. Somehow ethereal, as if it would fade and crumble to dust when touched, despite its metallic gleam.

It was marvellous.

The guide had been watching the crowd, waiting for their agape mouths to close before he brought their attention back to him by speaking up again. Though even then, some were to enraptured to pay him any heed. “Humans were a dimorphic species.” Some of the gentlemen, not having connected the dots already, gave a small hum of realisation. “Depicted here is a female of their species, unclothed, a common subject to draw – It seems the humans had a propensity for nudity in their art. It was an early rendition of the artform of cubism, painted with oil on canvas, the brush guided by the pioneer of the field himself. Even later during his life he continued to involve his art, but this, as an earlier rendition, still adheres in lighting and pose to the classical human notions of portraiture, though its brilliance in warping those traditional notions cannot be questioned.”

The assembled slowly nodded, some still gazing at the picture. None would be able to deny this artwork’s brilliance. None would be able to deny the fine taste of the man possessing it.

“The artist was named,” The guide stopped for a second, rousing the attention of the assembled before taking a deep breath and continuing, “’Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso’, or Pablo Picasso as he was more widely known.” A few of the finest of fine gentlemen, known for their unlimited composure, had had to stumble back as the man in front of them had said the artists name. The humans, as refined as they had been, seemingly hadn’t applied their elegance to their names.

“He was born in the year 1881 in the human calendar, and died in 1973. In the year of his birth, the first public building in the entirety of human history to be fully illuminated by electricity opened its doors, in the year of his death humanity sent out three probes towards three other planets of their solar system and established its first orbital station. Perhaps it was this marvellous speed of innovation that fuelled his spirits to revolutionize the arts? Sadly, we shall never know.” Gasps spread wide through the assembly of cultured men and women. What a meteoric rise in technology! It was beyond even their wildest imaginations. Some hearts were filled with awe, others with great sorrow at the loss the galaxy had experienced unbeknownst to all of them.

“Over the course of his life he saw the entirety of the world engulfed by the flames of war twice, living in a city occupied by one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty regime humanity had ever seen. The detonation of two nuclear devices and the start of a long period of constant fear, living in the shadow of total destruction as the press of a button, as two superpowers loomed at the edge of war. He also saw a great period of economic prosperity, followed by an even greater period of economic collapse, so severe that, through several channels, it even caused sandstorms to ravage the plains and cities of one of the world’s leading nations.”

“He truly lived at a pivot in human history, and, despite the challenges, or perhaps because of them, he, like the rest of human society, persevered and continued revolutionizing his art. Thus,” At his word, another artwork materialized behind him, taking it’s place on the wall. Nobody had noticed the women already taking position there, they had been too enraptured with the story of the artist.

“Today we present two of his artworks and will auction them together. While the one you have just seen was created in 1910, the one we shall now present was created in 1937 as the world came ever closer to the tipping point that would begin the Second World War.”

At the cloth was pulled and fell to the floor, an entirely different kind of artwork compared to the first one was unveiled. Bright yellows greens and blues dominated the motive. The shading was no longer in an elegant gradient, but harsh and thick. It too had adapted to the style of cubism.

The attendees couldn’t help but feel a grin spreading to their faces. This was the logical conclusion of the artform. Even the curved sections, curved as geometric forms, as circles fluently leading into lines and rectangles. The curvature no longer existed as a contrast to the harsh forms, the curvature had become seamlessly blended into them.

But it was not just the shading that had changed, but so had the posture and manner of depiction. The painted woman had shifted and deformed, though great care had been taken that her features remained identifiable.

And what was the logical conclusion of the picture seeming three-dimensional? The picture becoming three dimensional. Shifting arts around through abstraction to allow view of expressions hidden by classical notions of perspective. Brilliant.

The more the gentlemen thought, the bigger the smiles on their faces became. No-one would be ever be able to deny their taste. Some already started to check the contents of their accounts and contacting their company executives to sell some of their assets, so they would be able to one-up the competition. Ethers were frowning, trying to gauge how many other art pieces would be presented. The exhibition always lasted several days, with the most brilliant pieces on display at the advent of the first and the end of the last. Who could tell what more mysterious forms of art humanity had invented? And would they be able to outbid their competitors when the time came?

The guide smiled, seeing the beads of sweat slowly forming on the attendee’s fur. It was time to continue. Clearing his throat, he turned their attention back to him. “’The Weeping Woman’ is a spiritual successor to his most famous painting ‘Guernica’, displaying the horrors of the civil war raging in his country, which shall be displayed at a later date, along with other influential artworks of war.”

“He painted it after his mother wrote to him, speaking of the smoke from the burning city making her eyes water. As a response he tried to create a single universal image of human suffering. The model for the image was a woman called Dora Maar, his mistress for eight years. He painted her in various guises and situations and is recorded to have said ‘For me she's the weeping woman. For years I've painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one... Dora, for me, was always a weeping woman... And it's important, because women are suffering machines.’”

When a holographic display for the auction flickered to light, the gentlemen, known for their utmost dignity cried out.

“Ninety!”

“Ninety-five!”

“One hundred and ten!”

“One hundred and thirty!”

“Two hundred and ten.”

The room quieted as the attendees shifted their eyes to the man that had spoken. The man who had spoken was leaning on his cane, his eyes glazed but burning with fierce determination as he kept his eyes on the painting. It was useless to continue bidding. He was by far the richest of them all, and the fire in his eyes made it certain that he would acquire the paintings one way or another.

And so, the second and third piece had auctioned, the pieces already having surpassed those of the most coveted works of the last auction.

With that, the group continued down the halls, down a long stretch without any artworks on the walls. Curious whispering was starting just as they reached a gigantic hall, in the centre of which was constituted a large wall of red cloth, almost as big as the one that had obfuscated the gigantic Kle’Zut’t etchings in a crystalline cave a few years ago.

Just as back then, the attendees beheld the large cloth curiously. What could be hiding behind? A collection of items? Statues? A large mural? Or cave painting like there once had been. What broke them from their reverie was the voice of the company representative. It was when they heard the echo of his words that they realised how far the room stretched out above them.

“Over time, humanity developed a multitude of religions. In fact, it seems that even during modern times religion held much sway over society and their leaders. Our next piece consists of a multitude of so-called fresco a type of mural created on wet lime-plaster. As such, with the setting of the plaster, the mural becomes an integral part of the wall.” With a nod to the two assistants, they pulled off the veil – And plunged the attending into confusion, as they stared at what seemed to be several dozen pieces of wall, crammed together closely. They couldn’t even see most of the art pieces.

Their confusion soon turned to amazement however, as, in front of their eyes, the large blocks of stone started to lift, floating silently as if pulled along by invisible strings. Even these esteemed gentlemen, famed for their seemingly infinite composure couldn’t help but suppress their gasps as each the pieces of wall danced through the air, nimbly dodging each other and passing over the attendees. It seemed like an eternity, though it only took an instant for the pieces to have arrived at their proper place, filling the space all around them. To their right, to their left, in front of them and behind them. Yes, even high above them the marvellous artworks were displayed. They stood in a dome made of art.

Countless humans filled the lavishly created scenes. Some fighting battles, other’s cowering in fear. Some of the humans even had wings or were floating on clouds. “A chapel.” Someone whispered.

“Indeed.” The only man still capable of holding his composure replied. As if on command pillars, walls and statues flickered into existence filling the space between the pieces. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are standing in a recreation of the Sistine Chapel. While neither the biggest, nor the most lavish of houses of worship, this was the chapel in the residence of the man holding the title of their God’s representative. These pieces were created by many different artists and came into existence at around the same time as our earlier piece and too became a symbol of the era. These pieces depict key parts of their holy book, yet also include subtle criticisms of the corruption in the ranks of the exalted priesthood.”

The lights all around them dimmed, yet, after a few moments new light illuminated their surroundings. Looking around they could see that the light seemed to be falling through the holographic windows. Beyond which they could see the projection of a bright blue sky.

“Humanity seems to have been innately drawn to religion and spirituality. The earliest belief systems formed around the beasts of the wild or spirits or ghosts – Entities possessing all things that gave them their life or special properties, though curiously, some isolated parts of the world never did develop a theory of god or spirituality and, when introduced, couldn’t even comprehend the concept. Later on, domains of the world were attributed to their own god, with intricate stories in myriads of iterations connecting the pantheons together as they were adopted, rejected and slowly altered over time.”

The attendees could hear his voice through the earpiece they wore. It was a clear invitation to wander and explore the halls of the once-sacred place.

“Later, monotheism spread, centralising the power of divinity in one single entity that was said to be all-benevolent, all-knowing and all-powerful.” The attendees were roaming from artwork to artwork. In themselves they weren’t special, though certainly impressive. But it was the story they told that made them valuable.

There were men with rings over their head and white-feathered wings descending to the masses. A man on a cloud was extending his finger to another and somewhere further down another man was nailed to a cross. Some people were joyously and decadently living above the clouds while others were being boiled alive and pierced with spears in burning wastelands. It was brutal, as religion often tended to be.

“Religion spread through the world through missionaries and war, the head of the church for a long time being more powerful than all heads of state. However, after the corruption of the church during the height of their power, and with the invention of the printing press, the holy book was translated and spread amongst the people, allowing them to read and see for themselves the message the priesthood was preaching. The result was a brutal and bloody rebellion that culminated in three decades of war with everchanging alliances and borders.”

Every artwork had a small holographic node to interact with, projecting the information about the story depicted and the details of the artwork directly onto the retina of the observer. It appeared the religious text originated form one old part, with two major world religions adding a second part fulfilling the first one’s prophecies, while another belief system remained steadfast that there hadn’t been a messiah yet. They had been brutally persecuted wherever they went as the others gained tractions, in modern times only their holy land in their possession with the states surrounding them, harbouring genocidal hatred for them.

“Human sociologists posed the theory that religion was both a societal and evolutionary benefit for the tribes that had it, serving as both a system of ultimate, impartial justice, and giving a rough moral framework, with transgression being severely punished even if no-one observed the crime, thus encouraging moral action and trust between members of a community, while simultaneously explaining natural phenomena and bringing the tribe together as one, fostering and strengthening the bonds between them; theories of evolutionary ethics add that the fear of the unknown, of darkness itself, was hardwired into humans as a species that spent a long time in conflict with the predators of their lands, constantly searching for information to fill the gaps in their perception of the world, thus providing another factor next to the societal benefit that resulted in propensity for evolution and ethics being selected for."

As the presenter continued to impart information, a timer in the centre of the room slowly ticking down as the representative continued to impart information. The time given was ample, and the concern etched on some of the attendee’s faces disappeared.

“Even with the rise of science, religion remained a powerful force, though it was forced to adapt to cultural and political notions, losing evermore power of the individual. The voices of doubters also became louder and louder, now unsuppressed in most countries with the boundary between religion and politics becoming ever stronger. Of course, there was pushback. Countless terror cells being formed, trying to resurrect the glory of religion and beating back the foreign invaders in their lands. One of them inevitably provoked a decade long war, the repercussions of which were still unfolding when humanity disappeared.”

“But, more on war later. For now, feel free to explore, we will provide food and drinks. The artworks will be individually put to auction digitally, later in the day. We are in no rush.” At his words, pedestals filled with a small banquette of food and drink emerged from the ground, to the sound of grateful gentlemen and women, their throats having become dry from salivating so much at the prospect of attaining one of these artifacts of culture.

For the interested there was another pedestal with an assortment of holy books of humanity, all originating from different parts and cultures of what had once been humanities home-world. Some picked one up right away and used it as a companion book while they took in the artworks, others only turned to them when their eyes had been sufficiently sated, slowly reading through the annotation behind every passage, explaining the how their interpretation had evolved over time.

They were not just standing in a work of art; they were standing in a work of history. Some of them already had plans of recreating the entirety of the building on their private colonies. Perhaps even the ever so noisily complaining masses would come to appreciate this effort of cultural restoration.

Attached to the copies were also pictures of other buildings of faith, some built over the span of hundreds of years through nothing but manual labour, spires proudly sticking out into the sky as if to display their conquest of the natural world.

Even if they had been a bit culturally regressive, humanities ambition couldn’t have been expressed more clearly than these buildings did. How fickle life, and how cruel the universe was…

When they left the room, late morning had already turned to later afternoon. The representative had formally announced the purpose of the first day: To give a broad overview of humanity and the cultures it encompassed. It was the same purpose that the second day had. And the third.

While he hadn’t stated it outright, he might as well have had. If they needed three days to establish the fact about humanity and its art, their collection was more extensive than any they had had the pleasure to display before.

The gentlemen and women only hoped that there would be enough time between auctions for them to accrue enough wealth to avoid bankruptcy in the second. Though, of course, bankruptcy was preferable to the humiliation of not being able to acquire one of the highly prized art pieces or not attending at all.

“The guide led them through down another hallway. With every meter they walked the sound of their steps grew more and more muffled. The attendees quieted as they listened to the clacking of their boots growing quieter and quieter until they vanished entirely and only silence remained.

With that, the guide stopped and turned around, still in the middle of the hallway. They chattered amongst themselves, wondering what could trump the bombastic art pieces they had seen before. Theories were ranging from a fusion of all the arts to others simply postulating that it would be something they couldn’t have ever imagined in the first place, so debating it didn’t make any sense anyhow.

What broke them from their reverie was the sudden darkness that engulfed them. There was absolute silence for a few seconds, as the lights turned back on, one after another, now not a warm orange, but a cold and unfeeling white. In their light, they could see photographs and murals covering the walls. It seemed the darkness had been used to mask them being brought in. Excitement mounting, the chatter grew again, however they were interrupted by the voice of the representative. It was low and subdued. Even lower than when he had talked about the humans’ extinctions, his masterful control of his voice instantly drawing their attention to him.

“While every species has had their wars, few species have had them as bloody as humanity. I have already talked about the two wars that were waged, encompassing the entirety of their world, just two decades from each other.”

The man stopped for a moment. Even after all his rehearsals, he couldn’t help but hesitate at what he was about to say. “The first of these had casualties exceeding 19 million, the second up to 85 million – Tree percent of their total population at the time.”

That was impossible. Three percent? The attendees stumbled back in shock. That was… Too many. Imagining such a conflict on the scales of their trillions of individuals. It made a shiver run down their spine.

Some of the more far-sighted dared direct their gaze at the photographs. What they saw made them gag. Emaciated children, running from the flames of a forest. Legs pierced my spears, covered in faecal matter. Children laying in a freshly dug grave, a single bullet put through their skull.

“However not just the magnitude, but also the cruelty of their military conflicts was without equal. Our next pieces represent said cruelty. It is a collection of murals, encompassing 82 prints titled ‘The Disasters of War’, a series of 47 photos from the so-called ‘Vietnam War’, the photographs taken after the liberation of the ‘concentration camps’ during the so-called Second World War and other conflicts.”

A group of armed men, smiling and posing for a photo, the dismembered head of another man dangling in front of them as a trophy. A lone man, kneeling, his gaze directed at the camera, in front of him a small trench, filled with corpses, behind him a group of men observing as another put a pistol to the man’s skull, soon making him join his family.

Burnt flesh, corpses dangling from trees, sacks and jackets over their heads. A man looking down on the corpse of a child, a burning vehicle and a crumbling city in the background. A father cradling a child without a lower body.

“You may roam freely and look at the artworks. They too will be sold later tonight. Should you feel unwell, just walk further down this hallway, there will be personal assistants waiting for you, ready to take you to your rooms.”

With that the representative departed. Not even he could stand being in the vicinity of such cruelty, leaving behind the attendees, their mind roaming.

One after another they followed the representative, fleeing from the grueling sides of humanities history. Few remained to truly take in what was presented to them.

Genius, ambition, defiance, chaos.

They all recalled the steely gaze of the man in the artwork that had been the first to be sold. Was it one of defiance, or a calm façade hiding a bloodthirsty monster?

That night, once they had all retired to their rooms, they laid awake wondering for a long time.

Perhaps it was a good thing humanity hadn’t reached the stars after all.

Submitted November 09, 2019 at 05:20PM by 33_4p3 https://ift.tt/32wcrb1