Full Description
What role do the visual arts play in the emerging commercial spaceflight industry, and vice versa? This book considers the relationship between art practice and space science, presenting new methodologies for art-sci collaboration informed by non-terrestrial contexts.
Regarded widely as an irreverent luxury accessible to only a select few, commercial space exploration seems an unlikely setting for contemporary art practice. However, faced with the inevitability of this developing industry and the new environments it presents, a new field of creative practice is emerging. In Art in Orbit design theorist Barbara Brownie argues that these new environments offer novel opportunities that are yet to be fully recognized by the creative industries.
Throughout the book, Brownie explores the contexts, questions, challenges and opportunities for creative exploration of form, materials, and the body, in space. Drawing on original research in the STEAM subjects, the book highlights how artists, engineers, and theorists have begun working in close collaboration to reconsider practices that have been taken for granted throughout the history of art practice, demonstrating how ideas about orientation, weight, balance, and the familiar behaviours of art and craft materials are all radically altered in the microgravity of orbital space.
The research presented is supplemented by 9 original case studies from sculpture, craft, performance, and land art, together with exclusive interviews with artists who have produced work for space. Taking an original, critical approach to the spaceflight sector, Art in Orbit sets out to define a new field of artistic practice and the real-world impact of art-sci collaboration. It provides a template for developing new narrative strategies for space projects which will engage artists, scientists, and collaborative teams from across disciplines.
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction: Art in Orbit
Chapter 1: Art in the Commercial Space Age
From astroart to space art
Humankind in the era of commercial spaceflight
Towards a new definition of space art
Case Study 1: Trevor Paglen, Orbital Reflector, 2018
Case Study 2: Yasmine Meroz and Liat Segal, Impossible Object, 2022
Chapter 2: Science First, Art Later
Art in the space sector
Why is space art important?
Barriers to success in art/space collaborations
Case study 3: Max Baraitser Smith, Lunar Bureau of Weights and Measures, 2021
Chapter 3: Post-gravity Thinking: How weightlessness changes everything
"Entirely different foundations": Normogravity is not normal in the universe
The arts in microgravity
Representing microgravity on Earth
Case Study 4: Lisa Pettibone, Verdant, 2022
Chapter 4: New Horizons
The view from above
"There is no upright in space": Abandoning what we know about orientation
New approaches to orientation
Case Study 5: Eyal Gever, #Laugh, 2017
Case Study 6: Eduardo Kac, Télescope Intérieur (2017) and Ágora (1986-2024)
Chapter 5: Touching the Void
Performing weightlessness
The void: Infinite and intimate spaces
Making contact
Case Study 7: Jeanne Morel, Art in Space, 2016-present
Chapter 6: Making Space for Experiments
Space and craft
"The magic of things going where no mathematics model has gone before"
Experiments for future generations
Case Study 8: Alexis Hope, Space/Craft, 2019
Case Study 9: Sana Sharma, Fluid Expressions, 2020-2022
Conclusion: Finding Space for Artists
Appendix: Timeline of Spaceworks
References
Index
