Add to playlistSizzle reel for a TV Series coming to Earth 2023
Our Side of the Moon follows a group of individuals who are drawn to an archaic form of radio-communication that bounces messages off the moon and puts them in contact with strangers around the world. The story follows Diana, a brilliant young radio astronomer living under the Dwingeloo radio telescope in the Netherlands, and her ‘moonbouncing’ penpal Atari, based at the squatted Elfordstown Earthstation. Marked by a chronic mutism, Diana possesses a special skill: sound-to-movement synesthesia, a condition which allows her to ‘feel’ sound as muscular responses in her body. A strange radio message that bounces off the moon’s surface every day is rumoured to be a response to the legendary space probes Voyager 1 and 2, however, Diana’s synesthetic capabilities allow her to discover a different truth, which catapults her into a journey to the other side of the moon...
Moonbouncing, or ‘EME’ (Earth-Moon-Earth communication) offers us a metaphor to reflect on the contemporary condition from the ‘macro’ scale of the space to the ‘micro’ scale of an intimate exchange between two strangers connecting from different sides of the planet. Next to this symbolic exploration, mastering the basics of Ham radio brings us to the origins of information- and communication technologies, a knowhow which seems to be crucially needed as new generations grow more and more distanced from their everyday devices – technologies that can be used for democratic means and innovation, as well as for control and even warfare. As ‘old’ and ‘new’ technologies intertwine and co-exist, what might we learn from contemporary moonbouncers navigating different layers of time and space where echoes of the past, present and future may occur all in one instant?
www.oursideofthemoon.com
