Week 9: Space and Art

The NASA logo

“The astronomical artist will always be far ahead of the explorer. They can depict scenes that no human eye will ever see, because of their danger, or their remoteness in time and space” – Arthur Clarke

As the quote implies, artists have an important place when it comes to thinking about space and space exploration. This idea is also implicit in the purpose of the Leonardo Space Art Project, a group working on publicizing the work of artists, writers, and composers because of how powerful these people are in influencing our views of space. For example, in the 1979 novel Fountains of Paradise, Clarke discusses the idea of a space elevator, which seems rather unrealistic. However, with developments of nanotechnology today, it appears that we may actually be closer to this idea than we think. This is a great example of how artists are influencing our perceptions of space with their creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking, as alluded to in the quote above.   

The Space Elevator conceived of by Clarke

Clarke's novel: Fountains of Paradise

Another really interesting example of how artists and space exploration collide comes with the example of Arthur Woods sculpture, the Cosmic Dancer. It is a very interesting geometric shape that was actually created for the purpose of being in space, or zero gravity. At the Mir Space station, it was put in zero gravity with a space shuttle and the entire crew got to interact with and videotape the experience.

One of the crew members interacting with the cosmic dancer sculpture

However, reading about NASA’s space art program was most influential in my understanding of the importance of art in space and space exploration. NASA created the program in 1962, recruiting about 100 artists and allowing them access to all of their private records, as a way of dispensing information to the public through paintings, poetry, photography, and music. Even famous artists like Andy Warhol were a part of the program. This shows how important even NASA thinks artists roles are when it comes to space exploration—which I think is very hopeful in the idea of blending together the two cultures referenced by Snow.

One of the artworks from the NASA art program

Another example of artwork from the NASA art program

References

“Cosmic Dancer- a Space Art Intervention by Arthur Woods” The Cosmic Dancer Project. Web. 29 May 2015. <http://www.cosmicdancer.com/cosmic_dancer_introduction.php>.

Dunbar, Brian. “The NASA Art Program.” NASA. 12 Apr. 2013. Web. 29 May 2015. <http://www.nasa.gov/connect/artspace/creative_works/feature-inception.html>.

  

“Leanardo Space Art Project Visioneers.” Leanardo Space Art Project. Web. 29 May 2015. <http://spaceart.org/leonardo/vision.html>.

Lin, Kemy. “The 1969 Lunar Landing: One Giant Leap for Art.” Hyperallergic RSS. 27 May 2015. Web. 29 May 2015. <http://hyperallergic.com/204172/the-1969-lunar-landing-one-giant-leap-for-art/>.

Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.