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SPACE SOON
Art and Human Spaceflight
| TAKING CONTROL: Space Soon Symposium ABSTRACTS |
Symposium Programme
Speaker Biographies
ABSTRACTS
HABITAT: MAKING SPACE FOR HUMANS
Space/Craft Performance/Art
Garrett Finney
Architect: FARO (Former Senior Architect at the Habitability Design Center, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas)
- where SPACE might be as big as a National Park or as small as the glass you hold in your hand, sometimes an inch or a foot is nothing at all, other times it is discomfort or death, it might be here on earth or in outer _____, it might be simply in your head …
- where CRAFT is the careful consideration of how things are made, whether and why manufactured or wrought by hand, what they are made of and how they weather …
- where PERFORMANCE is what can be quantified in design, what can be tested, measured, verified, it is that not abstract, it is a process of testing through prototypes, of measuring and …
- where ART is everything that is subjective, mysterious, personal, beautiful
and sometimes awful ….
A talk about fun, design, technology, anthropometrics, human factors, fun, performance, objects in motion, transformation, fun, ecology, systems, ergonomics, efficiency, fun and the future.
SubCulture
Sarah Jane Pell
Artist
What are the futures we imagine and how do we begin constructing them…. underwater? Sarah Jane Pell discusses SubCulture, her underwater habitat vision, in the context of a future lunar habitat mission she has been developing with the ISU & the NASA Ames Research Centre.
Space on Earth Station
Ion Sorvin: Architect, N55
Neal White: Artist
N55 and Neal White have been working together since 2003 to develop an alternative vision for exploration of space, form and knowledge on EARTH. The result is the Space on Earth Station, an experiment that is inhabitable, fully functional, using a low-tech and low-economy architecture.
“Our vision was initially inspired by renewed, but in our view seriously flawed, ambitions to put a man on Mars. In responding to these developments, we also oppose the top down model of existing space institutions (NASA, astronauts, spaceships, rocket scientists) and their extra-terrestrial endeavours, and favour a more grounded form of research and development on earth.”
BUILD YOUR OWN SPACE PROGRAMME
The Quest for Transparent World –
A LADOMIR perspective
Marko Peljhan
Artist
The barren landscapes of the first EarthMoon are waiting and the new building is being shaped. We shall provide data for its perfect alignment. It will be armoured, autonomous and insulated. No energy will be wasted, no heat will escape. And it will talk with the planetary expanse.
Marko Peljhan presents the conceptual and technological challenges of the design, mission analysis, funding and R&D dimensions that are arising in the process of the construction of the LADOMIR remote sensing and communications micro-satellite (launch date – third quarter of 2008).
First Woman on the Moon (1999) by Aleksandra Mir
12 mins. DVD screening.
The day when heavy machinery and manpower transformed a Dutch beach into a lunar landscape of hills and craters. At sunset the labor stopped, and a live drum beat announced the ceremony of a woman, gracing this imaginary moon with an American flag. The same evening, while the party still went on, the landscape was flattened out again, leaving no physical trace of the event behind — save the memories and a story to tell future generations.
Gravity
Aleksandra Mir
Artist
The story of a woman building a 20 metre-high rocket out of junk. The idea of using found objects, cultural residue, or garbage, stands in direct opposition to the utopia of new shiny things. Likewise, the ambitious construction of a space rocket out of mere junk, entitled 'Gravity' and that in effect is going nowhere, is metaphorically speaking about what holds us back, rather than articulating any real intention to go.
“Global events in popular culture such as the moon landing, the development of a mass aviation culture, the future of the space program, etc, have massive influence on how we live and perceive ourselves in the world. To contribute to these grand narratives as an artist means that I can attempt to formally mimic their orchestration, play and make believe, but in a scale of David vs. Goliath, also reveal my vulnerability and incompetence, speaking for all those narratives in the backwater of utopia that typically remain untold.”
In conversation with Judith Palmer
Mrs Bloom’s Lunar Capsule
Michelle Griffiths
Artist
In the spirit of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, a woman wishes she can fly through space. She has been building herself a spaceship, using the excuse of being caught in a time trap somewhere around the 1830s to cover up her incompetence and lack of adequate technology. She predates Verne's novel by about 37 years. The initial prototype is a hybrid of an instrument case, a nutshell and a jewellery box. Influenced by pre-space age fantasies too romantic to be practical, the vehicle is propelled by a fleet of tethered butterflies, and the scientific instruments for navigation and measurement are borrowed Victorian antiques. The capsule is opened so that the curious can see the lady who dreams of the moon.
In conversation with Judith Palmer
LIVE INTERNATIONAL LINK-UPS
Paul D Spudis
Lunar Scientist. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Maryland USA
Why should humanity go back to the Moon? Haven’t we already been there during the Apollo missions, over thirty years ago? While Apollo was undertaken for geopolitical considerations, its principal object was to demonstrate that going to the Moon was possible. When we return, we go to learn how to use the Moon to create new capability in space. The Moon offers scientific opportunities, a world largely unexplored that can shed new light on the early history of the solar system. It is also a place to learn to live and work productively in space; on the Moon we will learn how to best explore other worlds and create environments capable of sustaining human life. Finally, the material and energy resources of the Moon permit us to begin to use what we find in space to enable us to explore space. “Cutting the cord” with the Earth will allow humanity to become a true space-faring species.
From the Ever Wild West:
A report from the Co-Chairs of the Space Art Track of the 25th International Space Development Conference
Lowry Burgess & Frank Pietronigro
Artists
Lowry Burgess, Professor and Distinguished Fellow STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University and Frank Pietronigro, Co-Founder of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) will present the latest space art videos from the United States including: Pietronigro’s Flags In Space! (a space dance video celebrating queer community access to space) and Burgess’s monumental work, ‘The Seed of the Infinite Absolute’.
These projects floated in microgravity along with other projects such as 'Germination' a collaborative space art project produced by students at the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, during ZGAC's SKY STUDIO Parabolic Flight that was flown on May 4, 2006 from Los Angeles by Zero Gravity Corporation. This flight was flown as a part of the Space Art Track, 25th International Space Development Conference. The conference was Co-Sponsored by the National Space Society and the Planetary Society. Burgess's ‘seed’ is formed by an elaborate series of processes and distillations created, in different global climates, over the past 25 years. Its shell is a fusion of the 12 ‘royal’ metals and contains a unified emulsion of the essences of 44 trees, 52 flowers, 36 waters, 32 bloods and 120 telepathic hopes representing, in essence, the entire Earth.
THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND IN SPACE
Life, The Universe and Everything
Kevin Fong
Co-Director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, University College, London
How are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going? These questions are more than the stuff of science fiction and metaphysics. In recent years, with advances in our understanding of cosmology, the advent of extrasolar planet detection and new data from probes exploring planetary surfaces in our Solar System the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything suddenly seems less elusive.
The future human exploration of the Moon and Mars has a significant role to play in our understanding of our place in the Universe. Searching for records of Earth’s early, geological history on the lunar surface and prospecting for evidence of the past existence of life on Mars will involve extended human expeditions that will stretch over months and years and span hundreds of millions of interplanetary miles.
The “humans or robots” debate is dead. The future of space exploration will involve both automated platforms and astronauts working in partnership to answer some of the most fundamental questions that 21st century science has to ask. But while astronaut crews are space exploration’s most versatile and capable assets their protection in the space environment presents a challenge that will require all that science, engineering and technology have to offer.
The Human Mind in Space
Gro Mjeldheim Sandal
Professor of Psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway
An examination of culture, co-operation and conflict in the space environment. Prof Sandal gives an overview of the psychological factors affecting astronauts and ground-based space crews. Particular emphasis is given to group dynamics. How are our space agencies currently selecting, training and supporting teams working in space; and what preparations are they making for potential long-haul missions, such as a manned mission to Mars? Sandal draws on her experience conducting large-scale international research projects funded by ESA focusing on psychological reactions during human spaceflights; and the psychological study she is currently leading with resident crews at the International Space Station (ISS) in collaboration with colleagues working for the Russian Space Agency (RSA).
SpaceBaby: Guinea Pigs Don’t Dream (video presentation)
London Fieldworks
Artists: Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson
Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson are sleeping a few yards away from us in The Roundhouse, taking part in SpaceBaby their performance installation and lab-in-action which explores the theme of hibernation. SpaceBaby references the vested interest of space agencies with regard to recent scientific research into the possibility of human hibernation, alongside fictional representations of hibernation and suspended animation such as Robert Heinlein's 'Methuselah's Children' (1958) and Arthur C Clarke, Stanley Kubrick, '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968).
The artists are sleeping in a specially designed Hibernaculum during the exhibition opening hours - and the lab-in-action is manned by a team of geneticists from University of Leicester who are examining the effects of disrupted sleep upon whole genome, gene expression, with a particular interest in individuals undertaking shiftwork. In the context of the SpaceBaby project, a parallel is drawn between shiftworkers and astronauts on long haul space missions: for years NASA scientists have struggled with the management of circadian rhythms and sleep patterns in the space environment.
The artists are undertaking an inverted sleep regime whilst blood samples are regularly extracted and processed onsite using Affymetrix gene chip technology. This data is then incorporated into a series of animations of the disrupted sleeping body.
Cosmic Flash
Tim Otto Roth
Artist
Cosmic Flash focuses on the impact of cosmic radiation on human spaceflight. Leaving the shielding atmosphere of the Earth, cosmic radiation becomes so strong in space that it even may cause flashes in the retinas of the astronauts. Tim Otto Roth presents his proposal to use astronauts on the International Space Station as human cosmic ray detectors – then relaying their experience back to audiences on Earth. In cooperation with ESA the flashes (appearing on average every 6-7 minutes) would be transmitted as a trigger signal in real time to the Earth, triggering large flash installations in major public spaces across several European cities. Cosmic rays were discovered in 1910 at the Eiffel Tower in Paris – where better place to witness
the Cosmic Flash?
The presentation is also accompanied by a near real time event transmission from the KASCADE cosmic ray detector at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe/ Germany.
ADAPTING TO ALIEN ENVIRONMENTS
Politics and The Plague; Back Contamination From The Planets
Dr Ronald Jones
Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Konstfack University College of Art, Craft and Design, Stockholm
Faced with a warning from the National Academy of Sciences that Earth could become fatally contaminated by extraterrestrial microbes brought back from the moon, and knowing that the United States possessed no reciprocal science to prevent potentially destructive lunar microbes from spawning a catastrophe, President Kennedy decided the political priority to land on the moon ahead the Soviets would prevail over any other risk. The decision to travel in space has always been a measure of the tolerance leaders have for risk, political and scientific, but should unilateral decisions continue to be made when the decision could be the harbinger of global extinction?
Do you know about helioseismology?
Semiconductor
Artists: Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt
Artists Semiconductor recently returned from a research fellowship at the Space Sciences Lab. UC Berkeley. They will reveal the story of how they went from being outsiders to collaborators; recounting courses of exchange and the development of partnerships with the scientists. They will also present some of the work they made at the lab.
Cultural Utilisation of the International Space Station
Nicola Triscott
Director of The Arts Catalyst
A short update on the recent study commissioned by the European Space Agency into potential cultural utilisation of the ISS.
“The study originated from ESA’s belief that the International Space Station is not only a great achievement of human ingenuity and international cooperation, as well as a cutting-edge research facility for scientists and engineers, but that it should be opened to a new community of artistic and cultural users. The cultural world, being an important part of the stakeholder community ‘European Citizens’, should also have a say in the future of space exploration. Increasing public awareness and involvement will be an intrinsic part of ESA’s planetary exploration programme Aurora. Artistic and cultural activities relating to space are also an important way of strengthening this public involvement. ESA is aware that it has a range of some quite unique facilities in space and on the ground in Europe and has an obligation to share these facilities with the people on Earth.
The study on cultural utilisation of the ISS aimed to generate strategies for involving cultural users in the ISS and to identify ready-to-implement projects in arts, culture and media that can tap into the contemporary European public’s concerns and interests. The study was conducted by The Arts Catalyst - with a team that included Delta Utec and Leonardo-Olats - for the European Space Agency. It involved consultation by The Arts Catalyst with a network of artistic and cultural communities in Europe and internationally, including seminars in Berlin, Yverdon and London. A mid-term presentation and workshop was held at ESA’s Erasmus Centre in Noordwijk to which a group of representatives from the European cultural community were invited, along with ESA representatives to discuss the draft policy recommendations. In the final phase of the study, a number of feasibility studies were undertaken by the study team in close consultation with ESA for selected proposed cultural projects making use of the ISS or its ground facilities which could be used as pilot project(s) in the future.”
Dieter Isakeit, Head of the Erasmus User Centre of the European Space Agency (ESA) at Noordwijk, Netherlands
The Fall to Earth
Andrew Smith
Author of ‘Moondust’
What did we gain by going to the moon, and what did we lose when we failed to return? The Apollo moon programme has been called the last optimistic act of the 20th Century. Over a strange three year period between 1969 and 1972, twelve men made the longest and most eccentric of all journeys, and all were indelibly marked by it. But where do you go after you’ve been to the moon?
In 1999, Andrew Smith was interviewing Charlie Duke, astronaut and moon walker, for the Sunday Times. During the course of the interview, which took place at Duke’s Texan home, the telephone rang and Charlie left the room to answer it. When he returned, some twenty minutes later, he seemed visibly upset. It seemed that he’d just heard that, the previous day, one of his fellow moon walkers, the astronaut Pete Conrad, had died. The more Charlie spoke the more Andrew realised that his grief was something more than the mere fact of losing a friend. ‘Now theres only nine of us,’ he said. Only nine. Which meant that, one day not long from now, there would be none, and when that day came, no one on earth would have known the giddy thrill of gazing back at us from the surface of the moon.
Andrew Smith discusses how he set out to interview all the remaining astronauts who walked on the moon; finding out how they were forever caught between the gravitational pull of the moon and the earth’s collective dreaming.
