“We sent a video to beyond Mars orbit and we are Brazilians!”
The duo FernandoS are Fernando Siqueira and Fernando Grostein Andrade. Siqueira, the vocalist, performed a 40-minute showcase of his own music, with a couple of well-known tunes to round it out. But he surprised the audience by painting an artwork during the opening music, which he told me was a first for his stage performances. The image is based on their new project, Necklaces, which will be released soon.
Aside from the delightful vocals in his soft voice, I made a particular point of the interviewing the duo because of their connection to a NASA space mission to Mars.
D-Sock is short for Deep Space Optical Communications, a tech demo that launched in October, 2023. [as both guys contributed to the interview, I am not distinguishing who said what]
“Basically what they did was testing out a new way of communicating information from with deep space. And the way they did it was by having a video of 56 seconds. It’s this optical communication way they found out how to do it with laser. So they sent out a laser beam down to earth that is way faster than any other sort of communication they tried before. D-Sock is a mission that piggybacked on another mission called Psyche, which is going to an asteroid of that name.
“We directed and produced it and we made the soundtrack together with the American record producer Fernando Garibay – another Fernando! Well, it looks like a joke, but it’s a third Fernando. He produced Born This Way by Lady Gaga and other big artists.
“So, it was a very exciting thing to be working with him for a project that was going to be sent out to space. There was a limit because there was only a small slot on the spaceship.
“The music was made the soundtrack for the short film, together with Gary Bay. NASA sent it back to Earth a bunch of times to just see how far they can keep sending. The mission went all the way to Mars orbit; last year in October they called us saying, ‘Hey, the mission was successful. We just tested with your video and we received it perfectly. So congratulations you guys, we made it!’”
The duo said there were some challenges from the communication standpoint. They were sensitive to the fact that NASA is a public agency, one that every American in some sense holds stock.
“So, we need to make sure that we are creating a content that can resonate with every American which is a very big challenge. NASA gave us total freedom to choose the theme and the content. We ended up deciding to talk about connection and connectivity. That’s why we decided the film would be about connection. Images include concerts with people going insane together in a good way. We were trying to make and having like a collective experience with music. It was a challenge to find the subject that was at the same level that the mission deserved.
“I think the biggest challenge for us was we had a short period of time to do the content. Since we pitched it to them all the way up to when we actually delivered the project was four weeks; it was very fast.”
“Since I was a young child, I have been a big fan of NASA and it was making my childhood dream come true, you know. It’s very exciting. It was big for me,” said Siqueira.
Photo: Dr Cunningham with Siqueira (l) and Andrade.
To hear his opening number at the SXSW concert, California, visit this YouTube video: