Eric Musgrave Week 9 Blog Space + Art
This week's discussion about the innovation of space craft and the race to space was particularly interesting to me giving the vast amount of research and resources put into space exploration. The interesting relationship between space and art exists not only between "space" and the way that it was mostly discussed in the lectures/readings (ie. stars, planets, galaxies, etc.), but also in time space and consciousness. Brian Holmes states, "Space has... lost its place in consciousness over time and with this loss, a loss of orientation senses occurred" (2000). I interpret this quote as meaning that the word is arbitrary in its usage since it is essentially endless or rather, beyond human comprehension. This is best exemplified in the "Powers of Ten" video which uses space technology to show the image of a young couple having a picnic. The image is first zoomed out of (in powers of 10^n) further and further from Earth before eventually being zoomed in on (n powers of 10) to explore the human body on an atomic level. The stark contrast in the zoomed in and zoomed out image speaks to the complexities of space and furthermore adds credence to the idea that the word "space" is open to artistic interpretation.
The race to space between the United States and the USSR was instrumental in a number of innovations pioneered by each country in order to keep up. In addition to a nuclear arms race during the Cold War, there was also the race to space between the U.S. and the Soviet Union which included the Soviet's successful completion of Operation Sputnik which was the first artificial satellite in space (Vesna, Lecture 2). In the Leonardo Space Art Project, Annick Bureaud states, " I strongly believe that only artists can provide the vision that will bring humankind to other planets" (1996). I strongly agree with the sentiment of Bureaud because I believe that too often, scientists are constricted in their thinking based on what they already know, so much so that creating innovative ways to continue space exploration is only possible through the advent of space art. Space artists provide a necessary medium by which vision far beyond that of the naked eye can be better comprehended. Specifically, space artists. offer size references that aid in the further comprehension of structures in space such as planets, the moon, the sun, etc. By better being able to visualize structures in space, space artists enable scientists a framework by which to base further space exploration.
In Lecture 5, Professor Vesna discusses space exploitation and how the private sector of space scientists are monopolizing certain resources in space such as the metals that compose asteroids and the fuel that can be extracted from them. I believe this to be somewhat detrimental to the future of humankind because it would allow the creators of these companies to further exploit the raw resource sector and have too much control over the distribution of certain resources. Nevertheless, I maintain that space exploration and its linkage to art remains quintessential for the continued progress in understanding the phenomenons of the universe.
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Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteThis weeks topic was interesting regarding the relationship between space and art. To believe that all the products from entertainment to the private sector have come down from imagination of people hundreds of years ago about their interests of outer space. It is also interesting that we are in the position we are in today because of the war between of the United States and Russia. If we have seen how much innovation occurred during a war, we know the potential that countries have to advance technology for the better.