‘In Event of Moon Disaster’: What Is Truth? season at The Sainsbury Centre

Inspired by the title of a speech prepared for President Nixon in case the mission met with a catastrophe, ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’ is an immersive experience which recreates a 1960s living room, screening the speech which was made using ‘deepfake’ technology. By artists Halsey Burgund and Francesca Panetta.

Using AI to tell an alternative history, the show brings to light how an event as influential as the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing could be manipulated, and how doubt can be cast on even the most well-known of facts.

Despite the United States´s space race rival at the time not even raising any doubts, a YouGov poll from 2019 found 16% of the British public believe the moon landing most likely never happened.

It remains one of the most famous conspiracy theories in the world, and one aspect that has been caught up in the theory is a prepared speech by President Nixon that was to be given in case the mission ended in catastrophic failure. The speech, titled ‘In event of moon disaster’, was of course never delivered, but now visitors to the Sainsbury Centre will be able to experience it like never before.

American new media artist Halsey Burgund (b.1973) and British digital artist Francesca Panetta (b.1977) have reconstructed the speech with the use of state-of-the-art deepfake technology. Played back on a vintage television like the ones that carried the moon-landing broadcast to 1960s living rooms around the world, the installation will highlight the media that are used to either build or destroy trust.

Both artists draw on their expertise in technology and creative fields, with Burgund being Creative Technologist-in-Residence at the MIT Open Documentary Lab and Panetta as Director of the Storytelling Institute at the University of the Arts, London.