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BIXBY EUROPA is an experimental-narrative animation
that addresses science fact and fiction, satire, pop culture, nostalgia, and cinema. It blends genres of noir, satire, fantasy, phychedelia, cultural analysis, documenta, and experimental animation.

The film depicts Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Galileo mission, as the spacecraft is first being assembled in the 1980's. JPL's goal is to send a robot spacecraft to Jupiter to take close-up pictures. There is a beckoning curiosity of the moons of Jupiter as well, especially Europa, where it is wildly speculated that life is under its icy surface. — A promise of new and "unpolluted" world. Yet, Galileo's mission does not include actually visiting Europa.

Overall, the piece is a reflection on the ambitious centrism beginning in the 1980’s that led to the great economic and social landslide of today. From Galileo's point of view, our planet can be seen from the receding perspective of space, where the entire eastern and western hemispheres are seen in a glance. The political effects of globalism are made visual. The struggle for resources put into a tiny theatre, and the high and low points of our cultural and aesthetic obsessions are offered up as either negligible or precious. The escapism invested in our Earth projects, the foretelling of collapse of our infrastructure, the agitated hope to leave our troubled planet, and the naive wish that life is uncontaminated on Europa, characterizes a poetic struggle and longing in this piece.

The animation combines techniques of pen-and-ink imagery and 3D computer animation. Musical score also by Jim Ovelmen.

Ovelmen is an artist and a Professor of Art at California State University Los Angeles. CSULA Art students contributed to the production of animation.

This film was supported in part by a grant from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at California State University Los Angeles.