Date: Friday, December 5, 2025, at 7 PM

Location: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Auditorium

Tickets: $9 regular admission, $6 for ALH Members (using code: F26PAR)

Post-film: Discussion with filmmaker Dario Robleto and Aurora Picture Show curator Peter Lucas

Ancient Beacons Long for Notice is the third part of Dario Robleto’s trilogy exploring the history and legacy of the Golden Record. Launched in 1977, this record is attached to NASA’s Voyager I and II space probes, which were designed to explore the outer Solar System. The gold discs contain images, languages, music, and sounds representing the diversity of life and cultures on Earth. Created by a team of scientists led by Carl Sagan, the Golden Record was a hopeful gesture, carefully curated to present humanity’s “best face forward” in a first-contact scenario with other intelligent life forms; any traces of war, injustice, famine, or environmental decay were intentionally omitted. Ancient Beacons Long for Notice examines the implications of this ethos across time and space through new research on a forgotten document: the earliest audio recording of warfare, made in 1918 on the Western Front of WWI. Robleto’s film asks: “What is our moral obligation to fully account for our actions—the good and the bad—in perpetuity, off-planet, and to beings we have yet to confirm exist?"

Post-film discussion with filmmaker Dario Robleto and Aurora Picture Show curator Peter Lucas. The film screening is presented in conjunction with Robleto’s exhibition If You Remember, I’ll Remember at Art League Houston, honoring his recognition as the 2025 Texas Artist of the Year.