History
From the Birobidzhan Star, March 23, 1929:
The Committee for the Deployment of Working Jews, under the guidance of Pyotor G. Smidovich, and with funds secured through private donations and its popular public lotteries, today dedicated the Collective Sphere OZET in a ceremony in Moscow. Upon its completion in late Spring, the OZET will become the home of nearly seven hundred pioneers, lishenets [politically disenfranchised enemies of the people] determined to become productive members of the Proletariat. Many Old Bolsheviks attended the ceremony and enjoyed, via live broadcast from space, a thrilling glimpse of this flagship, self-sustaining, super-orbital craft.
OZET contains both urban and rural environments, and has facilities for light manufacturing as well as agricultural production. (Part of OZET's mission will be to identify planets along the outward path of its journey that are capable of providing the raw materials necessary for industrial activity.) Settlers will enjoy and benefit from forests of useful trees (hornbeams, Nordman Firs, etc), streams stocked with running fish, and a lake full of sturgeon. The CDWJ will also provide cultural materials such as songs for the edification and leisure-employement of generations to come.
OZET is not intended to return to Earth. It is expected to cross a band of stars emanating from cluster 310 (as defined in the New General Catalogue) in roughly 360 years, at which point it will be considered a completely autonomous oblast, under the independent governance of the Sixteenth Generation of OZET Pioneers."
OZET is an ongoing collaboration between Aaron Meicht and Scott Blumenthal that encompasses a variety of live performances, films, studio-produced song recordings, and experiments with new media. Each piece of the project draws on and expands the fictional history of the Collective Sphere OZET.
OZET began in 2007, when Aaron started writing and performing musical forms inspired by his encounter with J.D. Bernal's prophetic 1929 scientific treatise "The World, The Flesh, and the Devil." These "Bernal Project" pieces also integrated ideas and text by Carl Sagan, Karl Kraus, Mark Kurlansky, Barbara Rosenwein, and Peter Singer. In the late Summer of 2008, Scott joined Aaron in evolving the project, and together they developed the idea of the Collective Sphere OZET.
Most recently, in August 2010, Aaron and Scott presented "Alberts I-V" at HERE. This theatrical-music work, produced with the help of a dozen collaborators, delved into the pre-history of the OZET.
Aaron and Scott have also presented two OZET pieces as part of the Ontological Theater's Incubator Series: "there's a distance at which control returns to us" combined saxophone, trumpet, and broadcasted spoken text to look inside the story of one of the OZET's first settlers and "Koba/OZET Songbook" was a two-part piece consisting of a thirty minute murder mystery for saxophone quartet, banjo, guitar, trumpet, and three actors, followed by a performance of six songs drawn from the official and folk cultures of the OZET, backed by a full rock band. "LULLABY FROM THE FIRST GENERATION OF THE [YOUR SHIP NAME HERE] TO THE LAST", performed at Listen/Space, was a full-out audience-participation sing-along, celebrating the pioneers who left earth for OZET, and the legacy they bequeathed to their children.
Throughout their collaboration, Aaron and Scott have been writing and recording a collection of songs they call the "OZET Songbook". Daniel (Space Monkey) Baker has joined them to create Pioneers of the OZET, a trio exclusively dedicated to performing these songs.
