Screening of SpaceBaby, a film by London Fieldworks (GB)

A new film by the artists London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson) charting the research done by the artists acting as subjects in an experiment to investigate a possible genetic basis for sleep - with a view to long-term space exploration.


DAY 2

Session 3: Cultural Concerns

The session addressed the interrelationship between intercultural, as well as interdisciplinary ideas of the cosmos and the nature of space exploration.


Desiring Missions: The Exploratory Urge and its Ideological Background Radiation - Andrew Stones (GB)



Artist Andrew Stones explored the empty territories that have often seemed to be a prerequisite for the big performances of human progress. Today, the New Worlds which await are not the terrestrial ones of Lewis and Clarke, or Captain Cook and Joseph Banks, but the video-surface of Mars, the Hubble Deep Field. Unlike any on Earth, these terrains seem culturally uncontested, open to any reading anyone might want to project onto them. The desiring imagination alone might be satisfied with visualizations, simulations, virtual realities, even art. Projecting without reflecting, the would-be explorer might forget that the dangers of exploration lie as much in their own disposition as in the new terrain.


Political Culture and National Space Policy - Iain Bolton (US)



Iain Bolton's paper examined the influence of political culture in the area of national space policy. Significant and substantive elements of the US space programme cannot be explained without acknowledging the influence of American political ideology and the country's collective self-image.


A New Culture in Space - Takuro Osaka (JP)



The vastness and mystery of the universe, transcending time and space, is a theme that has existed since antiquity, and has been represented by ancient monuments, religious sites, Japanese tea-rooms and gardens, and the like. The other theme in space art has been experimented with mainly in western Europe since the latter half of the 20th century: art that will unfold in space (zero gravity). This presentation considered Osaka's artistic experiments in this field, and the potential of art as a basis of a new culture in the space age.


The Legacy of Columbus - Hans-Arthur Marsiske (DE)



Space exploration, especially human space travel, is often viewed as a direct continuation of the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the other great European explorers of the 15th and 16th century. However Columbus' legacy is ambiguous to say the least. His discovery of a new continent paved the way to the empirical proof that the Earth is a globe, but it also opened up the trade routes for slavery. Marsiske's presentation argued that a space laboratory with the name of Columbus should represent these victims as well as the courage and determination of the explorers.


Space-Art-Rescue - Melody Burke + Frank Hoppe (DE)



Satellite Art Works created a Space Art initiative called Space-Art-Rescue - Art for the Early Warning System, concentrating on disaster reduction, cultural concerns and technology. Their Space-Art-Rescue devices are intented to be visible from earth to air-space, near-space and space and envelop the question of global responsibilities. New organs of perception, methods and activities connected to space are reflected in the examination of Space Art Practice, a fine art research approach within the evolving field of Space Art.


The Potential Contributions of Queer Culture - Frank Pietronigro (US)
No video available

Artist Frank Pietronigro (joining the symposium by videolink from San Francisco) discussed that, as a cosmology unique unto its own, queer culture has and will offer a differentiated contribution to the evolution of future space exploration while expanding the arts, humanities and culture in space in ways that are universally enriching. Throughout the history of our planet Earth, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender (LGBT) people have significantly contributed, in recognised and unrecognized ways, to evolution of culture and the author posits that it is inevitable that such contributions to cultural expansion in space will continue as our species moves off-planet.


ITACCUS Launch

The new IAF (International Astronautical Federation) Technical Activities Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Space (ITACCUS) was announced during the Less Remote symposium. ITACCUS has been set up to promote and facilitate the innovative utilisation of space by the cultural sectors of society internationally. The term 'utilisation' is used often by the space community. In a cultural context, it may include cultural production, cultural preservation, cultural representation, cultural education and cultural development.

The launch speakers were ITACCUS co-chairs Roger Malina, Director, L'Observatoire Astronomique Marseille, and Nicola Triscott, Director of The Arts Catalyst, and committee members Ciro Arevelo, Chairman of the United Nations Commitee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, who welcomed the ITACCUS initiative for the contribution that the cultural sector could make to space and society's engagement with it, Mario Hernandez from UNESCO, who explained the work of UNESCO in using space surveillance systems to monitor world heritage sites, Bernard Foing from the European Space Agency and Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque.


Session 4: Inhabiting Space

In this session, speakers considered the continuity between the needs of humans on earth and the possible demands of future 'spacefarers' in remote and often hostile environments.


Biological Habitat: Developing Living Spaces - Zbigniew Oksiuta (PO)



Gravity decisively influences the manifestation of earthly technology: humans create their static and mechanical objects according to the principles of Euclidean geometry from stiff, dead material: hardened concrete, glass, steel, ceramic. At the moment, we are still sending heavy, static equipment, produced on earth under gravitational conditions, into space - an environment which is not static at all. Artist Zbigniew Oksuita explores in his work what kind of habitats can make sense of a biological system in outer space.


The Martian Rose - Howard Boland + Laura Cinti (GB)



Artists Howard Boland and Laura Cinti presented their project, The Martian Rose, an artistic investigation into boundary conditions of life beyond terrestrial settings. The Mars Simulation Laboratory at the University of Aarhus constructed a planetary simulation chamber, used to expose biological samples under proxy Martian conditions.


Carrie Paterson (GB)




Tools to Search - Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE)



Leaving an environmental entity with known structures (gravity) confronts us with a differing reality. Art is related to the world that we know and where we are. What kind of art and perception would the expansion of our world into space create? Artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis discussed her involvement with a parabolic flight campaign at the DLR (German Aerospace Centre), in which she performed an artistic experiment to examine the smallest particles in the interiors of clouds - cloud cores / aerosols.
Supported by the Goethe Institut Glasgow.


Space Synapse Ltd - Anna Hill (IE)



Anna Hill gave an update on the Space Synapse venture, a collection of products designed to enable the human experience of space travel to be shared between astronauts and people on Earth.


The Other Place - Kirsten Johannsen (DE)



Going to Mars is widely considered to be the next logical step in human space exploration. Kirsten Johannsen's paper suggested that art production for long-term spaceflights will extend the artistic process on a technical as well as on an intellectual level, because artists will have to develop modified metaphors which question the non-orientated space as the other place. This will also imply the development of new design forms based on the unique interaction of the floating artwork and the floating astronaut as user, the astronaut as the new audience and the potential benefit of artworks in microgravity environments.


Garments for Reduced Gravity Environments - Mark Timmins (GB)



Fashion has a rich history of engaging with representations of space: during the space fever of the 1960s, fashion designers Courreges and Cardin explored new materials and silhouettes to transform gravity-laden mortals with some of the cachets and sparkles of space exploration. Mark Timmins asked: what will future space tourists (and staff) be clad in? He felt the answer lies in the hands of a new generation of designers who will create garments that react to zero and microgravity. Jets of air, magnets, shape memory alloys, nanofibres and fabrics, infrared data streams, light, radiation; the possibilities expand along with the technologies and the designers' imaginations.


Art from Atlantica Mission - Sarah Jane Pell (AU)



Artist Sarah-Jane Pell spoke on her artistic and scientific involvement in the longest ever human undersea durational mission ever attempted, Atlantica. A custom-built facility called the Leviathan Habitat is to be submerged off the coast of Florida. This presentation posits the Atlantica mission as an innovative platform for discussing new modes of being, strategies of technicity and the aesthetics of care and operation from within an analogue to future outer space habitat missions.