The Monophobic Response by American Artist is an art installation and film-based project displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from November 1–4, 2024 ( LACMA ticket(s) link). Note: Check times if you are planning to go since LACMA is closing early on Saturday.

This artwork, created through LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab, reimagines a historic 1936 rocket engine test central to early American space exploration. The installation takes inspiration from Octavia E. Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, which explores a dystopian future set in 2024, drawing parallels between Butler’s fictional narrative and present-day sociopolitical issues.

Central to the installation is a live performance and filmed re-creation conducted by American Artist in the Mojave Desert at the Reaction Research Society’s Mojave Test Area (MTA), where the test is portrayed within a barren, haunting landscape. The project examines societal ideals of “destiny” and human survival amid technological upheaval, as echoed in Butler’s narrative of Earthseed, a fictional religious community aspiring for interstellar migration as a means of survival. 

The installation features artifacts from the rocket test, including a replica of the original engine.  Founded in 1943, the Reaction Research Society (RRS) is the oldest continuously operating amateur rocketry group in the world conducting its events and outreach around the Los Angeles area and at their private testing site, the Mojave Test Area. Based on archival drawings provided by JPL, RRS members were able to faithfully reproduce a full-scale, fully firing prototype of the 1936 Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) liquid methanol/gaseous oxygen bi-propellant engine and static fire thrust stand designed by pioneers Jack Parsons and Frank Malina representing one of the very first liquid rocket engines made in the United States.