Week 9| space + art

Will Man Outgrow the Earth?, Eduardo Paolozzi, 1952. Museum no. CIRC.715-1971.

It seems that space and art have a long, and intertwined history in the sense that humans have always been set on trying to figure out how to create a tangible set of ideas on something so far away and unknown to us. In a similar way, art is a way of creating thoughts and ideas into something that we can view in front of us. I was particularly interested in how much space exploration has had an
influence on pop culture and the media. Even when we started to make steps to actually get to space, it became a media spectacle known as the “space race.” People now are so intrigued by the idea of space travel that watching NASA launches are something people attend, and the schedule is available online.

Effects artists (from left) oversee filming of the Millennium Falcon for "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope." Credit: ILM

What I find most interesting is the way that people decided to capitalize and expand on the media’s fixation on space travel through art. Shows like the Jetson’s and Star Trek let people imagine what ould happen if we were able to conquer “the final frontier.” In addition, people have created movies about space like E.T., Close Encounters, Star Wars, and Lost In Space. It is also interesting to note that in order to create the special effects to create the illusion of space, movies like Star Wars were expensive and created novel technologies to do this.

The interpretation of art goes even farther, with art influencing music like Space Oddity by David Bowie, Rocket man by Elton John, or more recently an album called Satellite Flight by Kid Cudi which was a lot of dreamy, abstract sounds that made you feel like you were somewhere else. All in all, the fascination with space and the idea that it is somewhere so huge and far from us gives artists a lot of room to play with interpretation.

Works Cited: 

Esa. “Art & Culture in Space.” European Space Agency, www.esa.int/About_Us/Art_Culture_in_Space.

“Florida's Space Coast Launches.” Space Coast Launches, 29 May 2019, www.spacecoastlaunches.com/blog/launch-list/.

“Kid Cudi - Satellite Flight.” YouTube, Tadas Paškevičius, 17 Dec. 2013, youtu.be/ghyrIwqYYQI.

Museum, Albert, and Digital Media. “The Space Race.” The Space Race, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL. Telephone 44 (0)20 7942 2000. Email Vanda@Vam.ac.uk, 31 Jan. 2013, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-space-race/.

“Visual Effects: Are Computer Graphics Always the Answer?” ACM Siggraph, 2 Jan. 2015, www.siggraph.org/visual-effects-are-computer-graphics-always-the-answer/.