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The Geostationary Banana Over Texas project, which Geist has been following with keen interest since its conception, has been grounded until further notice due to lack of funding.
The saga continues. Their e-newsletter elaborates . . .
The project has been suspended, since it was not possible to secure the budget on time for the scheduled launch of the banana.
Of course, the whole endeavor still is ongoing, where the ultimate goal is the establishment of this practice: visual expressions in near-space altitudes. In this pursuit, the insolvency for the launch of the banana is a small deferment, since it requires several attempts, several realizations, including from different artists, to establish this new practice.
Seen in this context, the Geostationary Banana Over Texas project has been a success, by pioneering the first attempt, and by being the most successful in pushing forward these types of artistic interventions. The possibility of these realizations sunk into the people's imagination, enhancing the validity and support for future explorations in this territory.
Foremost, this project has demonstrated the fantastic magnitude of this vast territory (near-space), which has the ability to amplify and multiply the conceptual implications of these works.
In fact, it is the formula of this practice which has made the GBOT project transcend what any artwork is supposed to do; that is, to capture the imagination of its public. The project succeeded in doing this, but in a wide scope, beyond cultural, regional, or community related groups.
We still are reviewing the wide implications and impact of this project. At the moment we are compiling all the documentation related to this experience; and we hope to make it available through a publication, website, and public presentations later this year.
In all, this was a successful widespread collaborative project where the contribution of each participant was precious and will be acknowledged in all final publications.
Thanks to this collaborative strategy, by now we count with an expanded team of engineers and scientist, and for the next year we foresee the creation of the first foundation/facility geared to supporting projects of this kind. Which in turn, will serve to coordinate new strategies to overcome the costs of these productions. More on the upcoming developments will be made public early next year.
Finally, notice that we are still anxious and in a hurry with respect to this pursuit, since we find so urgent, and pertinent to this century, to appropriate this territory for the arts.