Week 9: Space + Art

Week 9's topic discusses the art beyond our world and the possibilities of other planets. Space Art became a new art form after WWII with the race to space between the US and the Soviet Union (Spadoni). Space art ranges from basic art being made in space to the art of creating new civilizations. Throughout the course, technologies like nanotech and robots have led the human race to move across the stars. Most importantly, the relationship between space and art only works with good communication between scientists and artists (Bureaud). 

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20181214-the-artworks-floating-above-the-earth

Space art brings about many concerns, like what happens when other living organisms are found and how is the art of building new homes for humans going to work. The future is planned, but the relationship between artists and scientists brings about many concerns about how it's being built. Scientists and artists do not have a good history of communicating well, but miscommunication can cause more significant problems for the  Space Art realm. One artist named Nahum brings a very valid concern. They state, “Artists must be included in the conversation about how we explore space or else humanity … risk making the same mistakes the colonizing empires made in the past” (Van Houten Maldonado). In other words, we must not repeat the mistakes on Earth on other planets, and we need to work together to make a better future. Many groups are working on this, but awareness needs to be made. Mars Patent created a program that allows the global sharing of information on Mars, making people part of the conversation without restrictions (Mars). 

https://www.astronomy.com/science/space-art-celebrates-the-past-and-future-of-cosmic-exploration/

Space Art may have some problems, which happens when such vast developments occur, but what truly matters is the art and technologies formed. Many programs have created works to represent Space Art, especially  NASA. NASA brings about the future through their hard work of “[L]aunching the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment… and celebrating a year of science gathered from the agency's James Webb Space Telescope” (Low).  Space exploration grows every day through people's hard work and their research of seeing the art of space. More notable are the works that create Utopias and let the galaxy know our art, like Alamy’s golden records (Van Houten Maldonado). Overall, this week's topic was fascinating and an excellent example of how all the technologies we have learned about affect the arts of space.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20181214-the-artworks-floating-above-the-earth

References

Bureaud, Annick. “The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group.” The Leonardo Space Art Project, https://spaceart.org/leonardo/vision.html.

Low, Lauren E. “NASA Earns Best Place to Work in Government for 12 Straight Years.” NASA, 16 May 2024, https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-earns-best-place-to-work-in-government-for-12-straight-years/.

Spadoni, Aldo. “Space Art Celebrates the Past and Future of Cosmic Exploration.” Astronomy, 11 July 2022, https://www.astronomy.com/science/space-art-celebrates-the-past-and-future-of-cosmic-exploration/.

Van Houten Maldonado, Devon. “The Artworks Floating Above the Earth.” BBC, 14 December 2018, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20181214-the-artworks-floating-above-the-earth.

“Welcome to THE MARS PATENT.” Mars Patent. http://www.mars-patent.org/welcome/welcome.htm