Noah Heylen, All your base are belong to us
vrije kunsten
Jerry Galle
Pieter-Paul Mortier
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the idea of Martian canals, believed to be the creations of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, captivated the public’s imagination. However, subsequent research revealed these canals to be optical illusions, seemingly projections of the observers’ own retinal blood vessels onto the Martian surface by virtue of their telescopes.
German philosopher Günther Anders proposed that we live in an inverted utopia. Unlike utopians who fail to realize what they have imagined, we fail to imagine what we have already realized.
A particular conspiracy theory suggests that humanity originated from a faction of Martians who fled their planet following a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
Today, confronted with virtual twin realities and digital interfaces, we see the world through self-referential projections. Mars exists as the inverted utopia where we already reside.