DE: Artist & Project

»Outer Space Transmitter« is an artwork by Mona Schulzek. It consists of a radio station through which art is sent into space to get in contact with extraterrestrials.

For this purpose, the artist Mona Schulzek trained as a radio operator and developed an extraterrestrial alphabet to send electromagnetic art into space. Schulzek sees art as a cosmic language that can be extracted by extraterrestrials. She believes that every intelligent life form has the capacity for reflection and abstraction and must be understood as a creative life form. For Schulzek, the language of art represents the central key to communication with extraterrestrial beings.

Mona Schulzek (*1992) is a German artist. Schulzek understands art as a cosmic language that embodies a knowledge that cannot be expressed in formulas. For her, art represents an independent medium that must be considered alongside scientific methods and logical knowledge.
Schulzek is currently studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the class of Gregor Schneider and Peter Piller. 2019 she received the Max Ernst scholarship for her artistic work, which also featured a solo exhibition in the Max Ernst museum. Additionally, she won the first prize of the Vonovia Awards for her photographic work »Ottomane«, which is represented in numerous private and museum exhibitions. For her artistic research in the field of »electromagnetic art« she took her examination as a radio amateur with the Federal Network Agency in 2021.

Amateur radio is an international radio service practised by citizens for the self-study of radio technology. The radio amateur Mona Schulzek sends SSTV pictures via the »Outer Space Transmitter«, consisting of a CQ call and an art image. With the CQ call, she asks other radio amateurs for a report so that she can check the technical range of her signal. The abbreviation SSTV stands for »Slow Scan Television«. Ham radio operators use this method of narrowband television for transmitting still pictures. For an image in black and white to be recognized, a frequency of 1500 Hz for black and 2300 Hz for white is needed. The greyscale lies in between these frequencies.

Radio waves are electromagnetic waves travelling at the speed of light, capable of covering very long distances in outer space. The »Outer Space Transmitter« is transmitting electromagnetic waves, moving linear through the universe from the moment they have been sent. What makes them particular is that electromagnetic waves have an infinite lifespan. They basically exist for eternity – maybe even when earth and all its matter have crumbled to dust. In this case, the electromagnetic legacies could serve unknown life forms to learn of humanity's existence and gather information about them.