Space + Art

This week, we covered the final topic of the class – space and art. This topic is particularly interesting to me because I have always been fascinated by space and its vastness that can really put certain things into perspective. In addition to my fascination with space, Professor Vesna explains, in her lecture video, that space is where a lot of the topics we have already covered like nanotechnology, biotechnology, mathematics, robotics, and others (Vesna). This, in a sense, tied a lot of this quarter together because each week wasn’t an individual topic, rather building on one another.

Personally, I found the “Powers of 10” by the Eames family, who are great artists in their own regard, to be a great way to put things in perspective as an initial way of thinking about space (“Powers of Ten”). The video utilizes the power of exponents to visualize the importance of scale where every ten seconds, the camera zooms out ten times to finally depict the entirety of our galaxy (“Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things”). It is meant to demonstrate the universe as a world as one of continuity and change. It was very powerful in making the viewer realize how small a person really is in the grand scale of things and captured this phenomena in a unique way by utilizing space as its primary focus.

A summary of the Eames Video
Courtesy of: fastcompany.com

Another subject this week that really captured the overlap of space and art was the Leonardo Space Arts Project. Their goal is to highlight the work of artists, writers, composers, and others who are interested in space exploration (“Leonardo Space Art Working Group”). I found it fascinating that a group like this exists to compile and publish works of art specifically focused on space and the fact that the members vary from being artists to scientists to engineers reinforces one of the core concepts of this class – that art is a multidisciplinary phenomenon.

An example of the artwork created by the Leonardo group
Courtesy of: imperialearth.com

There exists this whole other realm of art based on space called “space art” which is the modern artistic expression based on outer space (“What is Space Art”). This includes a lot of the movies we love watching and the science fiction worlds we read about. The sheer vastness of space and the literal impossible potential makes it a great source of inspiration for artist because of how enigmatic and unexplored it is. Lastly, since we have so much to explore physically in space, the result is potential for boundless artistic expression based on it as well.

A few of the films inspired by space
Courtesy of: bollywoodlife.com

Sources:

“Leonardo Space Art Working Group.” Leonardo Space Art Project, www.leonardo.info/spaceart/spaceartproject.html.

“Powers of Ten (1977).” Eames Office. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=0fKBhvDjuy0

“POWERS OF TEN AND THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE.” Eames Office, 15 Apr. 2019, www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/powers-of-ten/.

Vesna, Victoria. “Space intro.” uconlineprogram. YouTube, 26 Mar. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=zzN08A6UBoo.

“What Is Space Art?” International Association of Astronomical Artists, iaaa.org/what-is-space-art/.