June 02, 2019 Week 9: Space and Art

June 02, 2019

Week 9: Space and Art

Sputnik

I have a personal connection to this week's topic because I actually am taking an astronomy course this quarter. That class and these last lectures showed how innovation in space would not be where it is today if certain events did not transpire. Galileo Galilei's invention of the telescope allowed astronomers to finally recognize the stellar parallax. The Cold War and the launching of Sputnik were impactful in starting the space race. From all these new inventions, people have begun to understand just how infinitely small we are in relation to the entire scope of the universe, a fact that was demonstrated in the Power of Ten video. It is this notion that has inspired so many artists to work in the realm of space art.

NASA poster

First off, I would like to mention Katie Peterson, who I discussed in my Event Blog 3. She worked with the Campo del Cielo meteorite, reconstituting it to make it look nearly identical to how it was 4.6 billion years ago, when it first formed in our Solar System. In addition, last year NASA commissioned artists to create posters inspiring people to join the race to Mars. Some marvelous-looking posters have captions that read something like "We Want You" or "Mars Explorers Wanted". Furthermore, Arthur Woods, one of the founding members of the Leonardo Space Project [1], designed what he calls his Cosmic Dancer Sculpture, which are three-dimensional geometric figures that have a unique appearance from every different angle the observer is viewing from. Lastly, on a completely different side of the spectrum, Marko Peljhan created MakroLab, which was first debuted in 1998. It was essentially a traveling lab where invited artists and scientists would stay for several days, collaborating and working together on whatever they wished. Even after the project was terminated in 2007, people continue to speculate whether this was intended to be a sculpture, work of architecture, or even an art piece at all.  

Cosmic Dancer Sculpture

As you can see, space art can take many different shapes. It is a perfect mixture of the minds of both scientists and artists, and it is this blend of thoughts that breeds new ideas. Collaboration that will continue to lead the world to discover and understand new topics. There is much to come in the world of space art. 

[1] The Leonardo Space Project was created to "investigate and promote the cultural dimensions of space activities."

References

Holmes, Kevin. “How To Melt A Meteorite: Artist Katie Paterson Is Refashioning Some Ancient Space Rock.” Vice, VICE, 27 July 2012, www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnz9nq/how-to-melt-a-meteorite-artist-katie-paterson-is-refashioning-some-ancient-space-rock.

“Makrolab.” V2_Institute For the Unstable Media, 9 Aug. 2011, v2.nl/archive/works/makrolab/.

​Science Editors. “Inspiring ‘Mars Explorers Wanted’ Posters by NASA.” Kickstarter, 7 Apr. 2018, www.kickstarter.com/projects/1607088548/inspiring-mars-explorers-wanted-posters-by-nasa.

USSR. Sputnik 1. Photograph. 1957. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/sputnik-1-replica

Office, Eames. “Powers of Ten™ (1977).” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Aug. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0&t=411s.

Sant, Joseph. “Stellar Parallax.” The Church and Science, Scientus.org, 30 Mar. 2019, www.scientus.org/Copernicus-Stellar-Parallax.html.

NASA. Explorers Wanted Poster. Photograph. 2018. https://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/resources/mars-posters-explorers-wanted/

Malina, Roger. “The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group.” Leonardo Space Art Project Visioneers, spaceart.org/leonardo/vision.html.

Vesna, Victoria, narr. “Space and Art Lectures I-VI.” N.p., Web. 02 June 2019.

Manalov, Gennadid. “Cosmic Dancer - a Space Art Intervention by Arthur Woods.” Gravity And Art: Space Art Arthur Woods Cosmic Dancer, www.cosmicdancer.com/gravity_and_art.php.

Woods, Arthur. Cosmic Dancer Sculpture. Photograph. 1993. https://www.cosmicdancer.com/gravity_and_art.php