MOONFACE Free Sheet
Thank you so much for coming to see MOONFACE! This freesheet aims to expand on some of the Research, Science and Law behind elements of the production.
Shady billionaires make plans to colonise and mine the solar system, and our nearest celestial neighbour has something to say about it.
A clowning show performed by Meg Hodgson with live sound from Livvy Lynch, ‘MOONFACE’ is a funny and exuberant love letter to our rocky satellite that explores what it means to be human. Expect burlesque and drag-style numbers, testimony from survivors of human-made disasters, and movement inspired by the gravitational interactions between Earth and moon.
You’re invited to help shape the show, making decisions as both a space-race billionaire and as collaborators with MOONFACE, the clown. Created in collaboration with Ilan Kelman from the Space Health Risks Research Group (University College London). Directed by Helena Banerjee with music by Livvy Lynch and Jan Brzezinski. Made with support from UCL Culture, Camden People’s Theatre and London Mining Network.
The Golden Record
Launched with the spacecraft Voyager in 1977, the Golden Record is a 12 inch phonograph record which contains images, sounds, music and human greetings as an offering to any intelligent life that might come across it. It also has instructions for use and a map to Earth from the wider cosmos. The contents include images of human houses, visual explanations of DNA, songs from around the world including Johnny B.Goode and human greetings in over 50 languages. Johnny B.Goode and these human greetings can be heard throughout MOONFACE. You can find the full contents here.
The record became a profound symbol for us while making MOONFACE: the human race (or specifically Carl Sagan) being faced with the weighty task of communicating what it meant to be Earth dwellers through a few images and sounds. It was also a feat of international cooperation. What comes across overwhelmingly is a message of welcome and willingness to learn: a welcome alternative to the Space colonialism we see everywhere today. If you have time to go through all the greetings individually, there are some beautiful human quirks in there. My personal favourites are the Amoy greeting ‘Friends from space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time’ and the slightly ironic Turkish greeting ‘Dear Turkish-speaking friends, may the honors of the morning be upon your heads.’
There are missing languages: some because of lack of proximity to the United States which raises questions about who gets to tell humanity’s story. Some because apparently the scheduling was an utter nightmare and sometimes there were diary mix-ups… which feels oddly perfect in representing humanity too.
(a note we wanted to add: the UN Secretary General’s voice you hear, was later found to be an alleged member of the Nazi Intelligence Services. The beautiful words about hope and humility he speaks were written for him as a figurehead, but it’s a good reminder that even the most well intentioned words from humanity around interplanetary colonialism are interwound with our capacity for harm and genocide.)
The London Mining Network
The London Mining Network is a grassroots organisation which undertakes research and action for human rights and environmental justice in partnership with communities resisting, or affected by, the operations of London-based or London-financed mining companies around the world. They aim to tackle impunity and hold the mining industry to account, end unethical corporate practice, and to create an alternative narrative which respects the diverse cultures and cosmologies of the people with whom they work.
Working in partnership with LMN and UCL Culture was a huge part of creating this piece and understanding how models of colonial mining are damaging communities and environments on Earth, especially their research into Deep Sea and Space mining.
I also highly recommend a film that they supported: Powerlands by Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso. It investigates displacement of Indigenous people and devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where Ivey was born.
If you’d like to support The London Mining Network’s work, you can do so by donating or volunteering with them:
Space Race Billionaires
Elon Musk stands for our recognisable Space Race Billionaire figurehead in MOONFACE, but as state actors (like NASA or the European Space Agency) have less funding to pursue Space Science, more and more corporations like Musk’s Space X or Bezos’ Blue Origin step in to make up the difference. And as Corporate actors, their focus lies on profitable Lunar and Interplanetary resource extraction, or Moon mining, either to extract precious minerals that can be sold on Earth, or to extract the components for rocket fuel in order to make Mars missions a reality.
Part of the Musk family’s fortune itself came from illegal, off-book stakes that Elon’s father had in a Zambian emerald mine and part of Elon’s Space mission is to correct the evil his father brought to the world.
This is something that struck me again and again while making the show: how emotionally billionaires view outer Space. Elon’s ‘dirty talk’ is from his impassioned and fascistic speech at Trump’s inauguration and his fetishistic relationship with Mars on twitter.
This emotional language can hide a calculated approach to making sure that they will ‘own’ part of the Lunar surface when the time comes, either through lobbying for space law changes, or by making use of indentured servitude as a way to garner the man power needed to power such resource extraction projects.
The Aberfan Coal Mining Disaster
The Aberfan village coal disaster (21st October 1966) occurred when a coal slag heap collapsed and surged into homes and the local primary school, killing 144 people, 116 of them children.
The event occurred due to heavy rain, but was caused by a dangerously high tip (5 times the height it should have been) and the tip being built on an unsafe natural spring.
The British Coal board initially refused any responsibility despite locals having repeatedly warned the authorities of the unsafe tip, and refused to cover the cost of the other unsafe tips being removed. Eventually, they were forced to cover some of the cost, but the British government and even the survivor’s charity fund were forced to cover the difference.
Aberfan led to significant changes in mining safety regulations and legislation, particularly regarding waste tip management. The village now hosts a memorial garden on the site of the former school to commemorate the victims.