Week 9

Outer Space picture from NASA telescopes

It’s hard to believe that this class is coming to an end, and I can’t think of another way to wrap it all up than with space and art! Professor Vesna had stated that this topic ties together all the previous topics we have had in class. She had stated that space has mathematics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology and based on past readings and research and of this weeks space topic it seems to be true.

Space is one of the most fascinating things in this earth. It has a universe of its own and thanks to the intelligence and scientists today, we are able to see within this phenomenon. But not only is it due to the researchers and engineers, artists also play a vital role in space as well. Annick Buereaud had stated in the Leonardo Art Project that it is artists and their work that reveal the essence of space for human. Artists have been the fuel of space exploration, with being able to embody in their art the dreams of humankind. (Leonardo Space Art project). This is definitely a different way of seeing art and how as time had passed with new technologies in art, most of it due to the creativity by artists.

Thom Kubli Float

One artist that I found very interesting was German artist Thom Kubli. He had created a flotation tank where this invention goes against gravity and floats, as one would do at the Dead Sea. He inspired this from his thoughts of being “different”, where he said it is the differences that provoke one to see beyond the normal environments (Forde 2010). 

Time Travel Theory 

This is probably where the creative ideas of movies of outer space come from. Many films try to recreate their own idea of what space looks like and what occurs in it. We attempt to understand it from our own perspective, such movies like ‘Meet the Robinsons’ and ‘E.T’. Future innovations I would love to see would be time traveling. It usually seems that space is connected with time traveling. In an article in TIME magazine I read a few years ago, it was said that in space a molecule was able to skip replication steps and even though this was only visible under microscopic lens, it gave the idea that time travel could be possible.  This is something we may not see in the near future, but could see in the distant future.

Works Cited:

Curtis R. Thom Kubli Float! Dancing on the Ceiling Art and Zero Gravity. Web. 2010. http://zerogravity.empac.rpi.edu/kubli/

Forde Kathleen. Dancing on the Ceiling. Art and Zero Gravity. Zero Gravity. Web. 2010. http://zerogravity.empac.rpi.edu/

“Leonardo Space Art Project Visioneers.” Leonardo Space Art Project. MIT Press, 1996. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Part 1. 2012. Film. 30 Nov 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2O5C0Iv6ROo#Links to an external site.

Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Part 3. 2012. Film. 30 Nov 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xCvFdfjj404Links to an external site.