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Cosmic Dune: A Rhyme for Despair is a hybrid undertaking: at once documentary, performance, and improbable research project. The project wants to channel our collective feelings about the state of the world, and send these feelings into space. Hoping to draw a benign superbeing to our planet.
Testing our Emotional Resonance Object at DDW 2026
On May Day 2027 we will work with youngsters, musicians and one scientist to send a heartfelt emergency signal into space - from the island of Terschelling in the Netherlands,
To prepare for this moment we are entering a DEMO Residency at Dutch Design Week 2026 focused on prototyping a device that sits at the heart of our Cosmic Dune experiment.
Designed by Edwin Dertien, creative roboticist at University of Twente, this Emotional Resonance Object aims at the stars and emits a powerful SOS signal once the surrounding crowd achieves a state of rhyme.
During the residency we will journey into the festival and perform SOS-to-Space-Jamsessions with people we meet. Each Jamsession gathers people around the Object and invites them to join in a musical moment of guided improvisation. As participants express their feelings about the state of the world, the device springs into action when optimum resonance happens.
Will we be able to touch the earth and pierce the heavens?
A Cosmic Bet on One Powerful Call for Help
Why a Rhyme for Despair?
The world is in deep trouble and it would be foolish ignore the possibility of outside help, assuming that extraterrestrial life exists.
However, the quality of help that might arrive could be influenced by the manner of our asking for it. A lovely and resounding call may draw an equally lovely response.
Can we strike the right note by caring less about technology, and more for emotional resonance?
At DDW we plan to conduct small experimental jam sessions of profound and beautiful whimsy. And then next year, on May Day, we will place a cosmic bet on one powerful call for help.
