杏吧原创

THE universal language of, well, the universe, is art, and to say hello, aliens have apparently already sent us their artwork. The work will be exhibited at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California, from 30 July.

鈥淎liens have already sent us their artwork, and it is to be exhibited in a museum鈥�

Thank artist Jonathon Keats for this. He was the first to consider that aliens will not send us Pythagoras鈥檚 theorem or mathematical symbols. 鈥淚f I were [ET] trying to communicate with beings elsewhere in the universe鈥�I鈥檇 try to express something about myself in the most universal language I could imagine: I鈥檇 send art,鈥� he writes.

And aliens, it seems, have done just that. Keats says he 鈥渄ecoded鈥� the artwork from a radio signal that came from somewhere between the constellations Aries and Pisces. The signal, detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was previously dismissed as meaningless (New 杏吧原创, 4 September 2004, p 6).

Keats says the display rights a historic wrong: 鈥淥ur culture has ignored extraterrestrial artistic expression. This is the ultimate outsider art.鈥�