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Art Representing Humans To Aliens (Pioneer Plaques)

Why is it shameful ?
 
They were inspired by greek statues.
 
Wish they'd been inspired by this lovely lady

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escargot said:
Because the male figure is shown as dominant and the female passive, and her genitals are drawn inaccurately, presumably through coyness
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I think the lack of an overt genital cleft is, arguably, more a matter for argument than whichever the two of them has their hand raised in greeting.

There's a persuasive interpretation that had the plaque depicted two men, the one with the largest penis would've had their hand raised. And anyway: equality & political correctness become moot when being eaten by a vast tentacled Cluthu-like creature who's been sent yet-another takeaway/takeout food menu from some other sunlit food-source that they might just visit, one of these days.
 
escargot said:
Because the male figure is shown as dominant and the female passive, and her genitals are drawn inaccurately, presumably through coyness.
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I had another look at the Pioneer plaque. Two things...
(1) The drawing is extremely simplified. Details such as every little curve of the genitalia do not need to be depicted in such an illustration.
(2) Body language. You're reading far too much into that simple little picture. I can't detect any 'dominance' or 'passivity' going on. The 2 figures are standing apart. Far enough apart that there's pretty much no interaction between them. What you may be doing is projecting your thoughts and feelings on the illustration.
 
Min Bannister said:
It probably just reflected what NASA scientists (overwhelmingly male then and probably still are) knew about women, ie. nothing. :shifty:
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The artwork for the Pioneer plaques was created by a woman - Carl Sagan's wife at the time (artist Linda Salzman).

The addition of the plaques was a proposal Sagan and Frank Drake pitched to NASA late in the preparations for launching the first Pioneer probe. They were given 3 weeks to submit a design, get NASA approval, and deliver the finished plaques.

There are varying accounts for why the female figure doesn't exhibit a vaginal cleft, the most widely known / published ones being:

- The cleft was omitted to reflect the ancient Greek / Renaissance depictions allegedly used as guiding exemplars.
- It was omitted from the submitted design for fear of NASA rejection, which might have aborted the plaque initiative entirely.
- It was included on the submitted design, rejected by NASA, and removed from the drawing(?) used to create the final engraved plaques.

NOTES:

If you check the 4 February 1972 report Sagan, Salzman and Drake published:

https://astro.swarthmore.edu/astro61_spring2014/papers/sagan_science_1972.pdf

... you'll see that graphic portrayal of humans wasn't their primary concern in the first place. The amount of consideration given the human figures is cursory compared to that given the coded representations of our location and our solar system configuration.

In the Note at the end of the published report it's stated that:

A redrawing of the initial message for engraving was made by Owen Finstad; the message was engraved by Carl Ray.
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Ray would have been working at the engraving company (Precision Engravers, in California). I don't know where Finstad fits into the production path. My point is that don't recall any mention of a complete "redrawing" in any of the accounts I've found, and this redrawing step represents another juncture at which Salzman's original artwork (whatever it included ... ) may have been edited.

It's probably also worth pointing out that the first plaque went into space at the beginning of March 1972 - circa 2 months after the first tentative full frontal nude Playboy centerfold (showing only pubic hair) and a time when any depiction of female genitalia was still legally considered obscene in the USA.
 
EnolaGaia said:
It's probably also worth pointing out that the first plaque went into space at the beginning of March 1972 - circa 2 months after the first tentative full frontal nude Playboy centerfold (showing only pubic hair) and a time when any depiction of female genitalia was still legally considered obscene in the USA.
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But male genitalia was okay?:thought:
 
Mythopoeika said:
I can't detect any 'dominance' or 'passivity' going on.
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Well, the man has his arm raised (active) the woman simply stands (passive) There is also the height difference.

Mythopoeika said:
What you may be doing is projecting your thoughts and feelings on the illustration.
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Isn't that what we all do when we look at a picture, our viewing and consequent understanding of an image is always through the prism of our own bias/intellect/fears/etc.

With that in mind we must hope that the aliens who do find it don't interpret a raised hand as a threat!

EnolaGaia said:
you'll see that graphic portrayal of humans wasn't their primary concern in the first place. The amount of consideration given the human figures is cursory compared to that given the coded representations of our location and our solar system configuration
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So, I wonder why they added them.
 
Oh, no "and" I was simply noting what could be interpreted as dominant.

Mythopoeika said:
They do have independent minds. They can choose to wave or not. This pic illustrates both
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Is that why the image was placed for possible E.T.s to see? For them to realise humans have free will?
 
pandacracker said:
Is that why the image was placed for possible E.T.s to see? For them to realise humans have free will?
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No. I'm sure it was a simple visual depiction with no political agenda or any subtle nuances behind it.
Take it at face value.
 
pandacracker said:
Well, the man has his arm raised (active) the woman simply stands (passive) There is also the height difference.



Isn't that what we all do when we look at a picture, our viewing and consequent understanding of an image is always through the prism of our own bias/intellect/fears/etc.

With that in mind we must hope that the aliens who do find it don't interpret a raised hand as a threat!



So, I wonder why they added them.
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Because if they didn't any alien who found the disc would have been as much in the dark as to what the inhabitants of the third planet from the sun looked like as we would be as to the appearance of said alien.

Have you any specific objection to the figures on the disc ?
 
Pandacracker,

If you enter 'sounds from the voyager disc' into your browser it will take you to a list.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Details such as every little curve of the genitalia do not need to be depicted in such an illustration.
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Every little curve? The woman has NO genitalia. Have you ever seen a woman's vulva looking like that? It's a Barbie doll.
 
Mythopoeika said:
2) Body language. You're reading far too much into that simple little picture. I can't detect any 'dominance' or 'passivity' going on. The 2 figures are standing apart. Far enough apart that there's pretty much no interaction between them. What you may be doing is projecting your thoughts and feelings on the illustration.
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He is standing a head taller than she is. She is slightly behind him. He has a hand raised while she has both arms at her sides.

As for 'projecting thoughts and feelings', I remember seeing this drawing when it was quite new, and reading about it in the Reader's Digest. It looked wrong to me even then, in my mid-teens. The woman looked subservient and she had no genitals.
 
escargot said:
As for 'projecting thoughts and feelings', I remember seeing this drawing when it was quite new, and reading about it in the Reader's Digest. It looked wrong to me even then, in my mid-teens. The woman looked subservient and she had no genitals.
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yes, it was discussed in my house and people were puzzled by it.
 
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