Week 9: Space + Art

This week’s topic – Space – fascinates me to no end. I believe that it is the lure of the unknown that explains the draw we feel towards space explorations. The idea that life on Earth, as we know it, might not be all there is to the universe inspires and excites many. 

The guest speaker for this week, Richelle Gribble, shared about her expeditions to various parts of the world and how she has integrated art making into them. Her artworks have been inspired and shaped by her expeditions, many of them reflecting the insights gained on her expeditions while also advocating for causes she is passionate about, such as raising awareness about environmental changes and biodiversity.

Gribble’s trip to the HI-SEAS Habitat, a Mars-like environment, placed limits and restrictions on her, forcing her to exercise creativity and think of new ways to carry out the art project she prepared (Gribble). The result was the projections of Cave Paintings of the 21st Century onto Martian rocks that she had collected. 

Projecting Cave Paintings of the 21st Century on Martian rocks by Richelle Gribble.

On a bigger scale, travelling to outer space had indeed inspired creativity. When an explosion had occurred during Apollo 13’s mission in outer space, ground engineers and the space crew worked together to improvise devices and come up with new procedures that led to the astronauts’ safe return to Earth. Our interactions with Space and the unknown inspire breakthroughs that would otherwise have never occurred. 

As part of the Beyond Earth artist collective, Gribble has also created art and translated it into binary code, and then into DNA to be stored in a capsule that will be sent into outer space. This art piece is symbolic as DNA has been the oldest and most resilient method to store data and hence is the “ultimate time capsule for any digitalized artwork” (Beyond Earth). This art work deftly incorporates science in its use of DNA, and will also contribute to science as the feasibility of data retrieval after being exposed to outer space will be studied. 

Artworks that were captured in the Space Art DNA Capsule by Beyond Earth.

Space Art DNA Capsule by Beyond Earth.

In the past decade, the possibility of space tourism has become very real. The dearMoon Project seeks to train eight artists to be astronauts and to send them into outer space. As more artists are given the opportunity to interact with and experience life in outer space in the future, I look forward to seeing the increasing synergy between art and science in the field of Space. 

The ascent of space tourism (literally).

References 

Gribble, Richelle. “Space and Art.” DESMA 9 Week 9 Lecture, 24 May 2021, online. Lecture. 

“About HI-SEAS.” The Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, www.hi-seas.org/about-hi-seas. Accessed 26 May 2021. 

Gribble, Richelle. “Moving off planet to Mars.” Richelle Gribble, www.richellegribble.com/the-nomadic-artist/moving-off-planet-to-mars. Accessed on 26 May 2021. 

“To Space, From Earth: Space Art DNA Capsule.” Beyond Earth, beyond-earth.org/projects-space-art-dna-capsule. Accessed 26 May 2021. 

“dearMoon Project.” dearMoon, dearmoon.earth. Accessed 26 May 2021. 

Cobb, Wendy. “Space tourism – 20 years in the making – is finally ready for launch.” The Conversation, 28 Apr. 2021, theconversation.com/space-tourism-20-years-in-the-making-is-finally-ready-for-launch-159606.

<Images and Videos> 

Gribble, Richelle. “Projecting Cave Paintings of the 21st Century on Martian rocks in my bedroom.” Richelle Gribble, www.richellegribble.com/the-nomadic-artist/moving-off-planet-to-mars. Accessed on 26 May 2021. 

Soterakis, Elena, et al. Artworks for the Space Art DNA Capsule. Beyond Earth, beyond-earth.org/projects-space-art-dna-capsule. Accessed 26 May 2021. 

Space Art DNA Capsule. Beyond Earth, beyond-earth.org/projects-space-art-dna-capsule. Accessed 26 May 2021. Lees, Nathalie. 

Space tourism. Retrieved from www.silverkris.com/the-great-space-race-the-frontiers-of-space-tourism. Accessed 26 May 2021.