Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 01:47:32 +0100
Subject: messages for 2099

Dear Tetsuo Kogawa,

the german broadcasting companys Hessischer Rundfunk and Deutschlandfunk wishes to conduct a project bearing the name "MESSAGES FOR 2099". The basic dea of this project of Kai Grehn and Carsten Nicolai is to send an acoustic "bottle" to the end of the 21st Century, in the form of a piece for radio, containing messages to the people living in 2099.
As is well known, the future is not something from the beyond, out of range and outside our imaginative capabilities. The future is here and now strictly speaking it is directly behind us.
There is a tradition among the natives of North America which says that, when taking individual or collective decisions, one must assume responsibility for the following seven generations. We ourselves are a seventh generation and the decisions we take or don't take will affect the
fate of people and life on Earth to an extent as yet unknown.

For the piece for radio entitled "MESSAGES FOR 2099" we have compiled an international selection of individuals and contemporaries whose conduct and actions reflect, in our view, a representative spectrum of current thinking of questions for today, namely in the fields of science, politics, religion culture and art.

The messages will be embedded by Kai Grehn and Carsten Nicolai in an acoustic framework, a piece for radio to be premiered by Hessischer Rundfunk in 2006. After the radio broadcast, "MESSAGES FOR 2099" will be transferred to a kind of black box and archived for future generations at a place still to be determined.

We would like to arouse your interest in this project and are approaching you now with the request to formulate in a few sentences a message, your message for future generations. Any message in acoustic form will be welcome.

We hope you will find it possible to support the project. If so and there
are some questions concerning this project I would be glad to explain it on the phone. So, please let me know if you have received my request and when I might call you.

Yours sincerely,
Kai Grehn/ Carsten Nicolai