For centuries, people have looked up at the sky and wondered whether we\u2019re alone in the universe. Science fiction<\/a> and popular media have imagined various ways humans might encounter and communicate with life from other parts of the galaxy. When the Voyager spacecrafts were launched in 1977, they carried copies of the Golden Record<\/a>, a compilation of sounds and images intended to represent humanity to extraterrestrial life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Over 40 years later, as the Voyagers continue to drift through space, the SETI Institute<\/a>\u2019s artist-in-residence program is kicking off a brand-new, 21st-century version of the Golden Record. Unveiled at the South By Southwest conference<\/a> last week, the EARTHLING Project<\/a> aims to create a global musical composition that represents the human species\u2014and launch it into the great beyond.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In a panel titled \u201cSETI, EARTHLING, and the Collective Musical Voice<\/a>,\u201d composer and SETI artist-in-residence Felipe Perez Santiago<\/a>, entrepreneur and Singularity University faculty fellow Ola Kowalewski<\/a>, and musician and software architect Rob Baker shared details of the project, as well as their thoughts on space art, the search for life off Earth<\/a>, and music as a tool for uniting humanity.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n