Hello Tate-in-Space
I have following the forum for some time and, unfortunately, never
found the time to say hello and introduce myself.
First, congratulations to Susan Collins and the other organizers of
Tate-in-Space and a Kudo:
As some of you may already know this project has made the headlines
in major media around the world last week. For those who haven't seen
the articles here a link to the CNN version:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/11/22/floating.gallery.reut/
Apart from the subject and content of the article which is about the
ETLAB and which I think you will agree, is very positively reported,
the fact that these articles appeared at all is an indication of how
"visionary" ideas about the exploration of space in artistic terms
can capture and excite the media's and the public's imagination about
the future of space activities. I think this reflects a widely
shared fascination associated with space exploration found throughout
the general public and the artist has the ability to interject a
fresh perspective which rekindles that fascination.
About myself:
I grew up near the space center in Florida where my father worked in
liquid oxygen production and where I had the fortune opportunity to
personally witness the beginnings the the US space program from my
front yard - Mercury, Gemini - Apollo launches. As a university
student I worked two summers at Kennedy Space Center during the
Apollo program. I began my art activities at about that time and
soon became fascinated about particle physics and the nature of
reality which led to the development of a pointillistic painting
technique that used points of color as a metaphor for the sub-atomic
universe - a technique which I am still exploring today in a number
of ways.
In the mid-eighties I turned my attention to the macro-cosmos and my
art began to focus on using space technologies for the realization of
art works in the space environment. At that time I proposed to put "a
circle in the sky" to celebrate the coming new millennium with a 1 km
in diameter inflatable orbital sculpture called the Orbiting
Unification Ring Satellite which would be visible to the entire
world's population as a symbol of global unity and peace. This
project led to the development of a prototype sculpture called the
OUR-Space Peace Sculpture designed to be deployed from the Mir space
station during a televised space walk. This project was very
developed including the construction of a full size (6 m) inflatable
mock-up in 1990 by NPO Energia (the builder of the Mir space
station) and the signing of various commercial agreements with the
Soviet space agency and organizations. The idea was to use this
project to promote peaceful cooperation in space at a time that the
cold war was still a reality.
However, the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war
put the above projects on hold, but seeing that the door to space was
still open in Russia, I manage to have my Cosmic Dancer Sculpture
approved and launched to the Mir space station in May 1993. This
project was a logical development of my terrestrial work at that time
which was concerned with making sculpture with multiple resting
points. In the space environment, it enabled the exploration of the
idea of three-dimensional sculpture existing in weightlessness i.e.
freed from the "gravity contant", as well as examining the
processes of integrating and interacting with art in a space habitat.
This Cosmic Dancer Sculpture project is well documented at
http://www.cosmicdancer.com where I recently posted a QuickTime video
(3.7 MB) at: http://www.cosmicdancer.com/video/video2.html
If you haven't seen the video before, I hope you will appreciate
the poetic and kinetic aspects of 3-D art in the weightless
environment of the Mir station. The entire video documentation (not
the video above) is 28 minutes in length.
Another art-in-space project was realized in cooperation with the
European Space Agency called: "Ars Ad Astra - the 1st Art Exhibition
in Earth Orbit" consisted of 20 original A4 sized, space qualified
art works from an international group of artists and an electronic
archive that were included in the 1995 EuroMir mission. My goal was
to get "art" into the space programs of the world's space agencies
and help to open the door to space to other artists. We also managed
to have the crew on Mir , not only find the best way to hang the art
works in their habitat , but to also serve as an in-orbit art jury.
An excerpt from the crew's comments can be found at:
http://spaceart.net/a3/comments.html
As with the recent Tate-in-Space press attention, the above
projects resulted in a substantial amount of media attention -
especially here in Europe.
Recently, I have been involved in an online research project
proposed and sponsored by the European Space Agency called : "ITSF -
Innovative Technologies in Science Fiction for Space Applications"
located at: http://www.itsf.org
Here, too, the idea of official space activities becoming
intertwined with art - in this case literature and movies - hit a
positive cord with both the media and with the public. This "PR"
aspect has, in my opinion, actually had some positive influence on
the position of the European Space Agency and the larger space
community vis-a-vis culturally related space projects and new
initiatives have since been launched and funded as a result. On the
ITSF website we just recently launched the Arthur C. Clarke - Ray
Bradbury Science Fiction Competition - so if any of you like to write
about space.......
In 1990, I founded the OURS Foundation which has been the vehicle for
the above projects and has organized, sponsored and/or participated
in a number of exhibitions, workshops, symposia and other research
activities dedicated to the cultural aspects of humanity's space
activities. We are working on some pretty interesting new projects
that I may discuss here later.
---------
If present and future political insanities don't shut the door to
space prematurely and permanently, the space artists of the 21st
century have a tremendous potential to not only join the greatest
voyage of discovery in human history but also to help make it happen.
This forum could become an important platform for future
developments, so I hope to see some new postings soon. I think there
is a lot of territory to explore.....and a new gallery to build in
space!
ars ad astra,
Arthur Woods
You can find out more about my past and current projects via the
links listed below.
www.cosmicdancer.com - Cosmic Dancer Sculpture Project
www.arsadastra.com - Art Exhibition on Mir
www.ours.ch - The OURS Foundation
www.spaceart.net - ars astronautica
www.itsf.org - Innovative Technologies in Science Fiction for Space
Applications
www.spacearts.info - the space art database (coming soon!)
www.spaceandsociety.org - World Leaders Opinions on Space Activities
(coming soon!)
www.swissart.net - the Swiss art portal
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