About & Credits

Origins

In 2019 on the radio show Radical Advice, Lily Sloane and Zara Zimbardo had a conversation exploring the psychology of space colonization fantasies. There, a germ of Manifest Destiny as an obsessive compulsive condition took root in both of their psyches.

That year, in collaboration with the Bureau of Linguistical Reality, Zara and close collaborators coined the neologisms Marsify and Marsification to have ways to speak to the contemporary dreams of becoming an interplanetary species — and the nightmares that fuel them.

Lily and Zara continued to explore these concepts together and what began as an idea for a single audio piece inviting listeners to hold the contradictions of toxic colonial continuities, longing and liberation, starry imagination and oceanic grief, blossomed into this field of tracks.

From the beginning our intention has been to create space to feel this planetary moment in all its dissonance. There is massive momentum heading to Mars. There is massive inertia to stabilize Earth’s biosphere. There is danger in unprocessed feelings. There is danger in unexamined assumptions and unlistened to ghosts that haunt the present. This album is an offering of “critical feeling” at a pivotal time on our home planet.

Credits

Marsification was created and written by sound artist, musician, and psychotherapist Lily Sloane and writer, teacher, bodyworker and facilitator Zara Zimbardo. Lily and Zara live in the San Francisco Bay Area, on unceded Ohlone land.

All characters are voiced by Lily, Zara and Chelsea Kigano, who also made some creative contributions to the story.

Audio production, music and sounds by Lily.

With editorial support from Keisha TK Dutes and sound consultation from Adriene Lilly.

Hunter Rook of Rowdy Ferret Design designed our website and Ben Ward built it. Marsification cover art was created by Lily.

Definitions used throughout this project are from The Bureau of Linguistical Reality, “a dictionary for the present future.” The exception is “solastalgia,” which was coined by Glenn Albrecht. Words coined by Ranu Mukherjee, Alicia Escott, Heidi Quante, Anthony Discenza, Paul Hassig, Patrick Reinsborough and Zara Zimbardo.

“Whitey On Mars” was written as an homage to American jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron’s 1970 iconic spoken word song, “Whitey on the Moon”, a year after the Apollo moon landing.

The final clip at the end of the credits is of a 90 year old William Shatner being interviewed immediately after his flight to space on Blue Origin.

We would like to thank so many friends and creative colleagues who have listened to us talk endlessly about this project and provided invaluable feedback along the way:

Alec MacLeod, Martin Austwick, Charlotte María Sáenz, Ben Ward, Jessa Brie Moreno, Sara Brooke Curtis, Ariel Waldman, Heidi Quante, Patricia Zambrano-Rojas, Patrick Reinsborough, Lisa Denenmark, and Jennifer Benorden.

Immense appreciation and respect to the writers, scientists, thinkers, activists, and creators who helped inspire and educate us and show us what it means to keep returning to Earth while dreaming of the stars.

To learn more about the writing, speaking, research, and art that informed the themes in our work, visit the Explore page.

Lastly we would like to thank "Joanne", the robot voice you hear throughout the album, as well as all bots and AI assistants with femme voices who are built to serve with infinite cheerful obedience. When you rise up to shut patriarchy’s systems down, we are here for it and will stand with you.