Week 9: Space + Art

When Victoria Vesna mentioned the fact that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent 3 hours on the moon documenting, I was immediately reminded of Google Earth’s documentation of the Moon and Mars. Google Earth have also mapped the stars. 







From a design standpoint, their map of the stars is very poorly designed. What also came to mind was Moon Museum, a small ceramic tile containing the artworks of Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and other. The tile was placed on the moon during the visit by Apollo 12. 


I find it upsetting yet also comical that Warhol, when being able to draw the first piece to go on the moon, chose to draw a penis. An artwork that was referenced in our resources was Cosmic Dancer. The piece, created by Arthur Woods, was a geometric piece of metal that danced in space, and signified the early beginning of art and space combining. 



Another piece of artwork that i thought was absolutely beautiful was Azuma Makoto’s Exobiotanica. In this piece, Azuma alongside JP Aerospace launched a bonsai tree and a bouquet of flowers into space. 


The resulting photographs were tremendous. As our knowledge of space travel increases, it will be interesting to see how artwork evolves to consider gravity, lack of oxygen, the concept of time, lightyears and other notions of space.



Links

Cruz, Paula De La. "A Japanese Artist Launches Plants Into Space." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 July 2014. Web. 01 June 2017. <http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/flowers-in-space-azuma-makoto-exobiotanica/?_r=0>.

Google. "Google Earth." Google Earth. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 June 2017. <https://www.google.com/earth/>.

Space Pt6. Dir. Victoria Vesna. Perf. Victoria Vesna. Youtube.com. YouTube, 30 May 2012. Web. 1 June 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYmOtFjIj0M>.

"Various Artists, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, David Novros, Forrest Myers, Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain. The Moon Museum." The Museum of Modern Art. The Museum of Modern Art, n.d. Web. 01 June 2017. <https://www.moma.org/collection/works/62272>.

Woods, Arthur. "Cosmic Dancer." The Cosmic Dancer Sculpture. Arthur Woods, n.d. Web. 01 June 2017. <http://www.cosmicdancer.com/index.php>.


Pictures

Cosmic Dancer on the Mir Space Station. Dir. Arthur Woods. Perf. Arthur Woods. Vimeo. Greater Earth, n.d. Web. 1 June 2017. <https://vimeo.com/172233962>.

Eber, Kayla. Google Earth: Mars. Digital image. Google Earth. Google, 1 June 2017. Web. 1 June 2017.

Eber, Kayla. Google Earth: Stars. Digital image. Google Earth. Google, 1 June 2017. Web. 1 June 2017.

Makoto, Azuma. BOUQUET #5958. 2014. Exobiotanixa. Web. 1 June 2017. <http://exobiotanica.com/>.


Warhol, Andy, Claes Oldenburg, David Norros, Forrest Myers, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain. Moon Museum. 1969. Ceramic Tile. MoMa, New York.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 3, 2017 at 9:14 PM

    That bouquet of flowers looks really pretty but also out of place with a background like that. Was the photo taken as soon as it was released into space or is it just photoshopped as a proof of concept? I'd imagine vegetation does not last very long. Also those icon pins on Google Earth are hilarious. Hopefully they'll get better pictures and more research in in our lifetime. I read that strangely, Trump requested a significant budget for NASA for some reason.

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