Void Aesthetics: Art Confronts SpaceX's Sonic Violence on Mexican Border
Jerónimo Reyes-Retana's installations expose the 'Playa Bagdad/SpaceX Conundrum,' where oyster farmers in Mexico face 'transboundary sonic violence' from rocket launches at SpaceX's Starbase, two miles north of the border. His 2025 film installation 'Void in Resonance,' winner of a CIFO-Ars Electronica Award, uses a sixteen-channel sound system and underexposed visuals to convey the erasure of marginalized communities. A related installation, 'terranullius.global' (2025), exhibited at Lodos gallery in Mexico City, features a sound interface rammed through a gallery wall. Reyes-Retana, a PhD candidate at University of Colorado Boulder, has researched the impact since 2021 and is developing an education initiative with Ana Cerino. SpaceX recently received federal approval to increase annual launches from five to twenty-five, with plans for orbital data centers. The article also contextualizes void aesthetics through Postcommodity's 2020 installation at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Pierre Huyghe's AI-generated film 'Liminals' (2025) at Berghain, and Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square' and 'Suprematist Satellites' (1920), linking historical Russian cosmism to contemporary techno-utopianism.
Key facts
- Jerónimo Reyes-Retana's installations address the 'Playa Bagdad/SpaceX Conundrum'.
- Playa Bagdad is an oyster farming community south of the Mexico-U.S. border.
- SpaceX's Starbase is located two miles north of the border in Texas.
- Reyes-Retana has researched SpaceX's effects on the borderlands since 2021.
- 'Void in Resonance' (2025) won a CIFO-Ars Electronica Award.
- The film installation uses a sixteen-channel sound system and underexposed visuals.
- Reyes-Retana is based in Denver and pursuing a PhD at University of Colorado Boulder.
- SpaceX received federal approval to increase annual launches from five to twenty-five.
- SpaceX plans to send data centers into orbit.
- 'terranullius.global' (2025) was exhibited at Lodos gallery in Mexico City.
- Reyes-Retana is developing an education initiative with Ana Cerino.
- Postcommodity's 'Let Us Pray For the Water Between Us' was installed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2020.
- Pierre Huyghe's 'Liminals' (2025) was screened at Berghain in Berlin.
- Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square' was first exhibited in 1915.
- Malevich's 'Suprematist Satellites' (1920) is in the Dallas Museum of Art collection.
- The New York Times called Starbase 'a beta test for a rising oligarchy'.
Entities
Artists
- Jerónimo Reyes-Retana
- Cecilia Bastida
- Cristóbal Martínez
- Kade L. Twist
- Pierre Huyghe
- Kazimir Malevich
- Ana Cerino
Institutions
- SpaceX
- CIFO-Ars Electronica Award
- University of Colorado Boulder
- Lodos
- Denver Art Museum
- Digerati Festival
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Postcommodity
- Berghain
- LAS Art Foundation
- Hartwig Museum
- Dallas Museum of Art
- Southwest Contemporary
- The New York Times
- New Yorker
- Art & Antiques Magazine
- e-flux Journal
Locations
- El Campo Pesquero de Playa Bagdad
- Mexico
- United States
- Starbase
- Texas
- Denver
- Colorado
- Mexico City
- Berlin
- Germany
- Minneapolis
- Minnesota
- Russia