My French is a bit rusty, but evidently this site (mildly NSFW link) is about "Cosmic Connexion", a French TV broadcast with, um, naked hosts. Why are they naked? Do they need a reason?
Well, they have one. The show is about humanity as it might be explained to aliens, and they include human evolution in that, which is why they’re nude. They’re broadcasting this show to a binary star called Errai, also known as Gamma Cephei, in hopes (tongue-in-cheek, I think) that aliens living on a planet there will eventually respond.
They may have to wait a while. First off, Errai is 45 light years away, so any return signal won’t be received for 90 years. Second, and more problematic, is that the main star in the Errai system is a K subgiant, meaning it’s a star like the Sun that has run out of fuel in its core, and is in the process of turning into a red giant. It’s known to have a planet orbiting it, and it might have more, but they’re doomed: as the star expands, they’ll fry under its heat. That’ll take some time, like thousands of years or more, but still. The TV show writers could have though this through a little better.
The show will be broadcast, they claim, by an antenna used by the French National Centre for Space Studies. They are also asking people to add messages they want the aliens to read. I might add mine: "If you can read this message, sorry about your star evolving into a red giant and all. Maybe this TV show starring naked French people will make you feel better. If not, please don’t come here and invade us, even though your planet is dying. The TSA will make entering the US really aggravating, and you’ll wish you’d stayed at Errai and vaporized instead."
Tip o’ the chapeau to Ray Kurzweil for this bit of naked ambition.
October 10th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Is there any known difference between this “broadcast” and high-concept porn? I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, just that this has far more in common with “erotic performance art” than anything else, including science.
October 10th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
As far as naked people go, it looks like they’re trying to imitate the Voyager plaque:
http://www.nord-com.net/uj.pfeiffer/sonde_voyager_plaque2.gif
October 10th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Just a little nitpick.
ARTE is a french-german cooperation.
The program is either french with german subtitles or german with french subtitles.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:16 am
Maybe they mean well and are just trying to tellour neighbours “if you like what you see and if your planet would happen to get fritzed any time soon, you’re most welcome”. Maybe… You know, the French: allways have to do it their own way: Ariane, fast breeder reactors, force de frappe, the Frech revolution… and now inviting the evil aliens. You never know what they will come up with next!
October 11th, 2006 at 12:33 am
I saw that, at least a part of it (in German, by the way). The part I watched was about how we imagine aliens, based on sci-fi movies, for example the drooling, double-headed species able only to feed on prey called Sigourney LOL It was fun and very much tongue in cheek, but definitely not what I’d call a scientific show, it was more philosophical than anything else, I guess.
October 11th, 2006 at 2:24 am
I can’t recall ever seeing anything on the German television with subtitles.. they rather let people lipsync the translation into German instead. I believe the French do the same thing.
October 11th, 2006 at 3:01 am
I watched the show in French, as the French astro-geek I am. It was somewhat fun, quite tongue-in-cheek. They mentionned the answers from aliens would come back 90 years from now, and played a few jokes about that. They did not mention the red giant bit, though.
The naked part was an explicit tribute to the Voyager plaque. Now it must be said that in France, nudity is mostly a non-issue, especially as compared to the US. Nudity, and genitals, are not associated per se with pornography or what not. It all depends on context. That’s why nudity can be seen quite often and I probably will not even notice it. In this instance, nudity was quite cartoony, exactly as in the voyager plaque. That was quite nice, and fun.
Unfortunately, this show, while not really scientifically wrong, was not a science show. It was a lot more like poetry. Nice, but science shows on TV are still as frequent as fishes riding bicycles (in France at least).
October 11th, 2006 at 3:05 am
Apart from a curious european tendancy to jump at any chance to be nude on television, the nudity actually makes perfect sense. We cannot assume that the inhabitants of an alien world wear clothing – so showing them a human with clothes on may lead their scientists completely astray in trying to understand the human body, with all its variegated and multicolored layers, many seeming to serve no practical purpose.
On the other hand, if they do wear clothes they’ll figure out pretty quickly that we’re naked… I wonder if they would consider it alien porn, and cover the light sensors of their spawnlings?
October 11th, 2006 at 5:34 am
Sure. It’s TOTALLY not just an excuse to be naked on TV
I believe that!
October 11th, 2006 at 6:24 am
Nudity is in France and Germany kind of a non-issue.
The USA’s approach to Nudity gave actually way to a slew of running gags here, about how Americans are more threatened by a naked nipple than by violence.
Any way, arte is an “Art tv station”, it does alot of stuff with subtitles and some very, very strange broadcasts.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:33 am
[quote="Carina"]Nudity is in France and Germany kind of a non-issue. [/quote]
So it is in Quebec, we often get short news segment about some “prude” moments in the US, with the TV host sometimes having an hard time believing it’s true and/or making fun of it.
The latest was a magazine about baby caring that shown a picture of a mother breastfeeding her baby. The commentator couldn’t believe that this picture caused any reactions at all…
Another that became huge was the whole Janet Jackson incident. People made it obvious is was a marketting plot and everybody fell for it, and nobody seemed to notice how insignificant the incident was. They also theorised how a violent act, like him slapping her, would have gone completely unnoticed.
And then the millions running gags about: sex = bad, violence = good.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Carina:
> Any way, arte is an “Art tv stationâ€, it does [..]
> some very, very strange broadcasts.
Jep. Seems more like an entertaining evening about the views of and expectations towards Space-Science.
Pity I missd it!
Having said that, I just wonder if good old BA knows (or has heard) of that ‘documentary’ ‘Operation lune’ (=’Operation Moon’) produced by said TV station, Arte, in 2002. (yes, I did a *quick* search on your site, but very quick).
This Documentary prooves that Kubrick got hired by NASA and NSA to shoot the Landing On The Moon on the “Odyssey”-Set. They even interviewed people like Buzz Aldrin, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and Kubricks widow…
You are bound to believe it in the end!
…unless you take that bit of time to watch the credits with all those outtakes where these oh-so-serious people forget their text and burst out loughing, plus an annoyed Donald Rumsfeld complaining about what they did with what he said and what they used it for…
It is a brilliantly made price-winning satire, not only on the Moon Hoax and conspiration theories, but also about the danger of manipulation. It is in parts WAY more credible and realistic than that famous FOX-docu. Kind of frightening…but great fun.
A must see for any Antihoaxer!
(Doesn’t contain nudity, by the way)
October 11th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Violence is endemic to a culture that guarentees the right to armament for the express purpose of shooting them,”,,,gol dang injians,,,” rattelsnakes, bears, wolves and,,,oh yes, don’t forget, any immigrants who don’t herd cattle, like us respectable white boys,,,
Maybe I just watched too many cowboy flicks when I was a kid,,,
Gary 7
October 11th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Yes, the US attitude toward sex/nudity is amusing to non-Americans. While playing an online game, chatting with associates, I used a four-letter word for breasts. Someone (an American) immediately got on me about using naughty words in front of her nine-year-old who was also playing.
Seems that the mention of breasts is an horrible thing that will warp her child forever, but having the child play a violent game – rated TEEN – that involves mass killing and wanton destruction, well, that’s just jammy!
Besides, the acme of French TV is Sexy Follies – a naked “Newlywed Game”. Hilarious
October 11th, 2006 at 8:54 am
We are SO gonna get invaded by sex starved space aliens …
*:p
October 11th, 2006 at 9:14 am
You will notice that a plucked chicken looks far more appetizing than one with feathers.
October 11th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Hum, Peptron? What about the nip slip accident of that girl that went on Musique Plus? That created an ordeal for days.
There was also the one about a college or university girl calendar, there was an uprising in the medias for a while too. Something about demeaning women.
I can name a few others. Quebec is as prude.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:26 am
I’m from Denmark nothing shocks me and it is contagious, just check out what happened when Dr. Hook was in Denmark some years back.
“An anecdote known to many festival guests involves Dr. Hook and a lot of nudity. Dan Sørensen remembers the episode like this: “The concert with ‘Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’ remains clearly in my head. It was a warm Sunday and Dr. Hook and his band were on the stage from four o’clock in the afternoon. In front of the stage was a large pool, and lots of people ran around naked. On the stage Dr. Hook didn’t want to be different, so they said ‘if you run around naked, we’ll do so as well’ – and so they did.—
Pics here….
October 11th, 2006 at 10:31 am
So what’s Erraian for “Ooh la la”?
October 11th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Chip Says: “As far as naked people go, it looks like they’re trying to imitate the Voyager plaque”
Actually, that’s the Pioneer plaque. Voyager had the gold record with “Earth’s greatest hits” on it.
- Jack
PS – The first “Star Trek” movie made the same mistake during the “mind meld” scene with V’ger.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
“If you can read this message, sorry about your star evolving into a red giant and all. Maybe this TV show starring naked French people will make you feel better. If not, please don’t come here and invade us, even though your planet is dying. The TSA will make entering the US really aggravating, and you’ll wish you’d stayed at Errai and vaporized instead.”
I can’t believe no one’s made a joke about anal probes, yet.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Bronze Dog, Anal probe jokes is to be submitted under articles about Uranus….
October 11th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Chip Says: “As far as naked people go, it looks like they’re trying to imitate the Voyager plaqueâ€
And then Jack says: Actually, that’s the Pioneer plaque. Voyager had the gold record with “Earth’s greatest hits†on it.
And then I say: Actually, there are naked people on the Voyager “plaque” as well, although properly it’s not a plaque. It’s a record inside an engraved case with pictoral instructions for playing the record and decoding the images. The pictures are encoded onto the disk along with lots of other pictures pertaining to life on Earth. However, the nudity on the Voyager disk is a lot more graphic than that on the Pioneer plaque. The term “clinical” would apply, since the intent is to give putative aliens an idea of our basic anatomy. There’s a website where you can see all 115 of the images on the disk:
http://re-lab.net/welcome/images.html
October 11th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
But the probe in Star Trek: The Motion Picture was actually “Voyager 6“. A spacecraft which never existed can have whatever plaque the film people want to stick on it, I suppose.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Do I get some kind of geek award for correcting someone else’s Star Trek joke?
October 11th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
A plaque with naked people on it, maybe?
October 11th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Not only might aliens not wear clothes, they might not even be sexual.
October 11th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Did you get this info from some existing Ray Kurzweil source? Or did he actually contact you about this. ‘Cause if you’re getting personal messages from Ray Kurzweil, then you’re even badder than I thought!
J. D.
October 11th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I got it off his site, but I have corresponded with Ray in the past. So I am less and more badder than you thought.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
It is certainly anatomically correct to transmit pictures of unclothed human beings to distant planets that may have no puritan ethics or embarrassment.
They will probably “laugh” more at our primitive technology than at our evolving earthling bodies.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
O-k, enough nudity stuff. Lets address the idea of who this is directed to. It may not be such a bad idea to aim it at that particular star. First, since its late in its life there may be a chance that some form of life has managed to evolve. Second, if its intelligent and is aware of the situation they may actually be looking for messages. If they are anything like us it would take an eminent problem as big as a potential nova to get the government of its ass. Of course, if its really like our government, it will assume we have weapons of mass destruction and mount an invasion. On the plus side maybe we’ll quit fighting among ourselves.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Me and Stéphane Dumas have been contcated by the Cosmic Connection producer. We have offered our help and proposed an updated version of our 1999 and 2003 message. Unfortunately, we had absolutely no impact on the project.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Plaques schmaques- just think of the possibilities: if Voyager became V’ger, the Pioneer would become P’ner.
Given a choice between a P’ner and a V’ger (though they probably would go together well….), the latter is more America neutral.
I’m far more concerned that the TV show ‘Seventh Heaven’ (an admittedly cosmicky title) had two stars (again the cosmic thing) who were in Star Trek movies. This lends credence to my theory that William Shatner really is behind the creation of this evil, faux Universe. The relation of the pentagram to phi proves it.
Jess Tauber
October 12th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Blake Stacey Says: “Do I get some kind of geek award for correcting someone else’s Star Trek joke?”
Absolutely!
When I attended one of Phil’s sessions at WorldCon in August, they were late starting due to problems with the video projector. One of the guys in the row ahead of me issued forth with a line from the most quotable movie in history: “This new learning fascinates me. Tell me again how sheep’s bladders may be used to predict earthquakes.”
“Prevent earthquakes,” I corrected.
“No, it’s predict,” he assured me.
Naturally a debate worth of the Council of Trent broke out to settle the issue. At least it kept us entertained until the BA could mount the stage with his presentation.
- Jack
October 12th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
There really is no need to send messages to my home planet. We are already here and walking amongst you!
My mission here is almost complete…
October 12th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Yeah …
Mine, Too …
And ya’ Know, it Really Is TRUE What they Say About Earth Girls!
October 13th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Hi Zaphod. You’re looking good – the two heads suit you. Nice ship you’ve stolen.
(Check out my Hitch-hiker music on my website!)
October 13th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Ummm, ignoring the nudity and the language stuff (audio and subtitles not both in the same language are either going to serve as a Rosetta stone or confuse the bejeesus out of some alien radio astronomer)..did someone say the program had depictions of science-fiction aliens in it? Great, just great…assuming any aliens on the receiving end figure out a way of decoding the image (was it broadcast in PAL, NTSC, SECAM, or some other standard?), what will they make of the slobbering monsters with elongated heads and multiple sets of jaws?
Alien 1: “We believe the soft squishy ones are the dominant life forms…but maybe not. Notice in this segment we see them running from and being attacked by other, apparently superior life-forms.”
Alien 2:”Perhaps this was a desperate plea for help. If so, it probably reached us too late…but, fortunately for us, their planet may now have been cleared of indigenous sentients, and any ethical issues of our relocation to this world have been resolved!”