Space: Science, Technology and the Arts – May 2004

Participants : Teresa Almeida I Marco C. Bernasconi I Annick Bureaud I Lowry Burgess I Jim Burke & Dokbua Rungsak I Richard Clar & Tetsuro Fukuhara I Nina Czegledy & Luke Jerram I Kitsou Dubois I Anna Piva & Edward George I Dan Goods I Patrick Gyger I Honor Hager & Adam Hyde IPatrick Gyger I Naoko Hamada, Shuji Araki I Isabel Hawkins I Anna Hill I Setsuko Ishiguro I Andrew Kaiser I Laura Knott I Tina-Heriette Kristiansen & Jesper Jorgensen I Lorelei Lissovsky I Peter McLeish I Adam Nieman I Helene van Oldenburg & Claudia Reiche I André Oliveira, Hugo Simoes & Joao Graciano I Robert Parkinson I Michael Punt, Martha Blassnigg & David Surman IDavid Raitt I Michael Anthony Ricciardi I Tim Otto Roth I Graham Smith I Nicola Triscott & Rob Lafrenais I Alexander Van Dijk IAline Veillat I Andrea Vogler & Jesper Jorgensen I Arthur Woods I Yuichi Yonebayashi

I dreamt I was floating…
An immersive environment that is portable and inflatable. A wearable for the ‘Living Anywhere’ Man. This Living Anywhere gives preference to ‘alternative’ ways of life and spaces [synergetic behavior]. This specific I-Wear would be an artifact of the future moving theatre/cinema.
Exploring space by means of an I-Wear:
This I-Wear inflates and can be put together anywhere; it has an electronic component that triggers and controls the inflation; both sound and image are triggered and controlled by pressure (exercised while inflated). Its user manipulates and controls all the actions [sound and image – narrative] according to the space / area where he is operating [constant re-shaping/pressuring].
How it [almost] floats
By the means of a flexible structure which would work as an articulated architecture triggered by the [inter]action of its inhabitant. To this inhabitant (nomadic, affected by constant moving, flowing) it is allowed to carry this object everywhere (permitted by its characteristics – weightless, inflatable, portable, resistant). Ideally, while shaping it, integrating it, immerging in it he will trigger sound and images (imagining he got home and turned on the TV or Stereo) or just taking shelter (imagining he got home and falls asleep while noise continues ‘outside’). Though he is in control of that noise, sound and image – by modulating them while occupying spacially and by the intensity of his movements.
How it [really] floats (or the relation of this space in Space)
Reinventing/ Inverting technology – or how to deflate [zero-G] and float

Biography: Teresa Almeida is born 1974, Portugal
Currently living in New York where she is pursuing a Master degree on Interactive Telecommunications, Tisch School of The Arts, NYU. Background in Theatre Design, Animation and Arts Administration. Before moving to NYC was living in Lisbon and worked with CPAI Association and ZDB Gallery organizing and producing events and exhibitions; also did 2D animation for several independent short movies.

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The phenomenology of zero-gravity consciousness is central to the author’s artwork and thinking. In this paper he will discuss the direct corollary of Heidegger’s philosophy of « releasement » or disengagement (gelassenheit) to the many reports of artists and others in the experiencing of zero-gravity or micro-gravity. This nexus of disengagement and releasement is a precondition to the a exploration of nascent aesthetic formulations that are inherent to zero gravity or released experience.
The author calls for new networks of large university, institutional, and space agency support in Europe, Asia, India, as well as involving the cultural potentials of the International Space Station. These « ground-to-zero-gravity linkages » need to be explored in a variety of settings and conditions involving new communications technologies to build broader educational and cultural participation.
Carnegie Mellon University, through its STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, as well as with the recent appointment of Frank Pietronigro, Director of the Zero Gravity Consortium, to the Fellowship, is fostering a much wider participation among the space art community, NASA, as well as with the inauguration In June of a new Institute by Interdisciplinary Programs of Carnegie Mellon University. The Institute, called the Sparta Institute, in Sparta Greece, is a creative experiment in interdisciplinary integration based on the ideas of Martin Heidegger expressed in his « Conversations on a Country Path ». The project will link the ground-based philosophy of disengagement to micro-gravity disengagement in the hyperbolic flight in an effort to open wider horizons for the direct and indirect experiences of zero-gravity consciousness to an interdisciplinary group of young students, artists and experts.
The author will conclude with a brief description of his own artwork for micro gravity flight, « Moments in the Infinite Absolute ». The « Seed of the Infinite Absolute » will float in micro-gravity above Greece generating brilliant flashes of light as it transits from O G to 2Gs. It is formed by an elaborate series of processes and distillations over the past 25 years.

Biography: Lowry Burgess is an internationally renowned artist and educator. He created the first official art payload to be taken into outer space by NASA. His artworks are in museums in the US and in Europe.
He is Professor of Art and former Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University where he co-founded the Studio for Creative Inquiry which supports advanced research projects in the arts. He directed SIMLAB, an advanced networked VR laboratory at the National Engineering Consortium at Carnegie Mellon University.
He has been a Fellow and Senior Consultant at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 25 years where he created and directed large collaborative projects in the US and Europe. He is on the International Advisory Committee on Art, Science and Technology at MIT.
He was the concept originator of the international New Year’s arts festival called « First Night ». He originated the arts in the subways programs for the Department of Transportation. He has developed and advised in more than a dozen major city scale projects.
He has been honored with awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His book, Burgess, the Quiet Axis received the prestigious Imperishable Gold Award from Le Devoir in Montreal.
He has been featured in numerous international television and radio broadcasts in the US, Europe and Japan including: NOVA, « Artists in the Lab »; Smithsonian World, « Elephant on a Hill », « Artists of Earthwatch »: « Arts and New Technologies » (Tokyo 12); « Artransition » (German National Television); « The Quiet Axis » (Hungarian State Television), on MSNBC; and more than two hundred national and international radio broadcasts including Cspan and two National Public Radio broadcasts.

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New initiatives are now underway in ESA, NASA, JAXA, ISRO and China for exploration of the Moon. In ESA’s Aurora program and in a recently-announced American plan, the Moon is seen as a stepping stone toward the longer-term goal of human residence on Mars. At the 2004 session of the International Space University in Adelaide, Australia, a student team will execute a project intended to give an independent assessment and make recommendations relating to this worldwide Moon/Mars effort. ISU’s Space and Society Department will be active in the project. In this paper, the authors intend to identify and promote practical opportunities for including art in coming lunar programs — both as an intrinsic part of those programs and as an element of outreach to the worldwide public. It is time now for space exploration to pass beyond its historic focus on engineering and science, and become a broader enterprise engaging the energy of people in all creative fields. A first step can occur during the next few years, as missions are conceived and carried out at the Moon.

Biography: James D. Burke is a graduate of Caltech and a long-time employee of the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, retired as of 2001. His main professional interest is in missions for the exploration and settlement of the Moon. Burke has been a member of the faculty of the International Space University since 1989. He is a Fellow of The British Interplanetary Society and a member of The Planetary Society, the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

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The basis for the concept put forth in this paper-creating an interstellar message using art and technology-was presented at the first workshop, The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Construction (IMC), organized by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, held in Paris, in March 2002.
Two artists, one from an Eastern culture and one from a Western culture-with a shared belief in universality common in art-have developed a modality for constructing a message directed towards an Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI).
Collaborating on New Butoh Space Dance – Interstellar Message Composition (NBSD-IMC), New Butoh Sensei, Tetsuro Fukuhara, and interdisciplinary artist, Richard Clar, present a novel approach to Interstellar Message Composition utilizing art and technology. Combining the multi-cultural dimensions of music and dance with the use of two non-traditional technologies, Stereolithography and Motion Capture, it will be demonstrated how the behavioral and emotional state of the sender of the message might be revealed. A detailed account describing the art, technology, and philosophy of NBSD-IMC is presented in a chapter by Richard Clar in a forthcoming book, Between Worlds: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition (The MIT Press), to be released in 2005

Biography: Richard Clar is a Southern California Conceptual Artist who now resides in Paris. Clar, an early pioneer of art-in-space, began work in this field in 1982 with a NASA approved concept for an art-payload for the U.S. Space Shuttle. Philosophical in nature, themes for Richard Clar’s art-in-space projects include: space environment issues, such as orbital debris; war and peace; the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and water management on Earth. The work of Richard Clar has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and universities in the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 2001, and again in 2002, Clar coordinated the Leonardo/OLATS/IAA Space Art Workshops in Paris. Richard Clar is the Director of Art Technologies, Paris; a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA); a Board of Directors Member, Cosmica Network; Artist in Residence, Companhia Espacial Portuguesa Lda.; a Member of the SETI Permanent Study Group, and a member of the Leonardo Space Art Working Group. Clar was the Secretary of the former Art and Literature Subcommittee of the International Academy of Astronautics, and a past Member of the Executive Board, Graphic Arts Council, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Tetsuro Fukuhara, dancer and choreographer, is the Director of NBSD-IMC and Future Body Laboratory in Tokyo and works with American Space Artist Richard Clar in Paris. Supported by the Japan Foundation and other institutions in 1990, Fukuhara began his activity as a Space Dancer in Paris and Berlin in an effort to establish a new standard of dance performance. His successful performance in the « East Winds Festival of New Butoh » in London in 1995 secured his status as an internationally renowned performer. In 1996, he performed in Beirut with the goal of expanding his dance world to the Middle East. During 2000 – 2002, his appearances at many international cultural events such as « Space Dance Lecture and Demonstration » at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab in Boston, the United Nations in New York, and the media art festival « ISEA 2002 » were praised for having a tremendous impact on their audiences. Fukuhara started the next Space Dance Project together with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in Tokyo, in 2003. In order to develop talented new students, Tetsuro Fukuhara continues to teach « New Butoh » and « Space Dance » at many universities around the world, including Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, where he is a visiting professor.

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In the current phase of the collaborative Aurora projects, Nina Czegledy, Luke Jerram and Peter Ride, explore the notion of changing perceptions concerning the visible and non-visible domains of the electromagnetic spectrum. The visualization of the invisible electromagnetic environment and the notion of mediation and mediated experience remain central issues of the Aurora investigations. Since the mid- nineties Nina Czegledy has studied scientific, historical sociological and artistic aspects of the electromagnetic environment. Luke Jerram, is deeply interested in the properties of light and perception and in his own words: « in the edge of reality ». In the month of December 2003, Nina and Luke were immersed in aurora research at the Sodankyla Geophysical Institute and Observatory, Lapland. This presentation outlines the history and aim of the Aurora projects with a focus on personal arctic observations.

Biography: Nina Czegledy is an independent media artist, curator and writer, who has collaborated on international projects, been producing digital works and leading and participating in international workshops, forums and festivals for over a decade. Czegledy’s art, science and technology interest is reflected in her projects: The Aurora Projects. Electromagnetic Bodies, and Digitized Bodies, Virtual Spectacles. These projects focus on the changing perception of the human body, the electromagnetic environment and are presented via on-line and on-site events in Canada and abroad. Czegledy initiated Points of Entry, the first Canadian, Australian and New Zealand digital arts collaboration. Czegledy has curated over twenty media art and video programs which have been presented in more than thirty countries and had her writing published worldwide. Czegledy is the curator of the Canada Digital Culture Map project in progress. She is currently chair of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA).

Nina Czegledy is an independent media artist, curator and writer, who has collaborated on international projects, been producing digital works and leading and participating in international workshops, forums and festivals for over a decade. Czegledy’s art, science and technology interest is reflected in her projects: The Aurora Projects. Electromagnetic Bodies, and Digitized Bodies, Virtual Spectacles. These projects focus on the changing perception of the human body, the electromagnetic environment and are presented via on-line and on-site events in Canada and abroad. Czegledy initiated Points of Entry, the first Canadian, Australian and New Zealand digital arts collaboration. Czegledy has curated over twenty media art and video programs which have been presented in more than thirty countries and had her writing published worldwide. Czegledy is the curator of the Canada Digital Culture Map project in progress. She is currently chair of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA).

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I would like to present our new project in collaboration with the French Space Research (CNES) and the Cultural Public Center of La Villette in Paris, through my choreographic work and presentations of my new performance « Analogies » in November/December at La Maison de la Villette in Paris.
This project consists in realising a connection between a scientific knowledge provided by space activities and its artisitic translation .
Some materials that come from scientific activities in microgravity can be integrated as an artistic expression around body in movement. They concern cognitive sciences, mechanic of fluids and cellular cytoskeleton self-organization.
We have defined, at this stage of the project, theorical concepts which appear in these different types of scientific researches, like : point of contact, point of support, structural and non-structural phenomenons in microgravity.
The first step of this project consists to explore, during the parabolic flight of april 2004 with the CNES, the question of point of contact and point of support with one dancer.
Our expressive field is performance. I have chosen a dancer who dances around and on a chair in zero G. Chair is the support- surface. We are going to work with the beginning of the movement , the sources of light and the frame of the image to insist on the quality and the duration of the contact, and to let appear the dilatation of the body in the frame.
Materials obtained in flight will be worked again, during artistic research laboratories in water and with mixed technics (dance/ circus, danse/contact improvisation, dance/images and specific scenographies)
For the final step of this project, dancers and acrobates of the compagnie will participate at the automn in the parabolic flight campaign of the CNES, to mix, open and develop experiences and aesthetic materials for the rehearsal of our performance « Analogies ».

Biography: Dancer and choreographer. Artistic Director of Ki Productions, Paris

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In January 2003 we received a grant from the London Arts Board for research and development of Sound Of Science, a three-part installation based around new dialogues between contemporary astronomy, digital art and electronic music.
We would like to present a workshop whose subject will be an elaboration of the theme of possible histories of music and science, which informed our research for Sounds of Science.
We would also like to present an outline of our recent collaborations with astro physicists Phil Uttley at Southampton University (currently at NASA Goddard Space Centre) and Tim O’Brien at Jodrell Bank Observatory.
In 2002 Phil Uttley announced that data readings of x-ray detritus from black hole Cygnus X1, were implicitly musical in structure.
We met with Dr. Uttley, and he gave us access to his research data of observations of x-ray detritus of Cygnus X-1 made by NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Satellite.
We then collaborated with astrophysicist Tim O’Brien at Jodrell Bank Observatory, and converted this data from text to audible phenomena according to specific parameters aimed at creating different ways of experiencing the data.
Through digital manipulation and granular synthesis we brought about different soundings of Cygnus X1’s output, bringing to light its invisible workings, making audible the pre-human music of this black hole.
We are now using this material as the basis for the first of our three-parts installation, Astro-Black Morphologies, in which the converted x-ray data of Cygnus X1 will be immersed in the technologies of digital art and music by Flow Motion and generative design by Adrian Ward @ Signwave.
We see these collaborations as a process based interface between different methodologies, between the high technologies of astronomy and the low economy technologies of electronic music and digital art, and would like to share the ideas and possibilities that have emerged during this research period.

Biography: Flow Motion are electronic musicians and sound artists Anna Piva and Eddie George. They produce multimedia installations and sound art performances. As Hallucinator, they record for Berlin’s experimental electronic label Chain Reaction. Their work has been shown at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Pompidou Centre, Paris, the International Institute of Visual Art, London; the Steirischer Herbst Arts Festival in Austria, Star City’s historic Cosmonaut’s Club, Russia, and Sadlers Wells’ Lilian Baylis Theatre as part of the Arts Catalyst’s ‘Artists & Cosmonauts’ season.

Flow Motion’s interest in the cosmos precedes and runs parallel to their formation.
Anna Piva’s research in the possibilities for a cosmic music based on an interface between electronic music and radio astronomy began in 1999, and provided the basis for collaborations with astrophysicists Tim O’Brien at Jodrell Bank Observatory and Phil Uttley at Southampton University.

With director John Akomfrah, Edward George wrote the ground breaking documentary Last Angel of History/Mothership Connection [ZDF, Ger/Channel Four, UK 1995]. Featuring interviews with Juan Atkins/Model 500, Derrick May, Carl Craig, DJ Spooky, Ishmael Reed, George Clinton and astronaut Bernard Harris, as well as Sun Ra, Underground Resisistance, and Lee Perry, the documentary essayed the forms and formative historical moments and founding figures responsible for rerouting black (un)popular culture’s quest for freedom from the terrestrial, into the cosmos.

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Dan Goods is an artist in residence at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has been charged with developing unconventional ways of communicating JPL’s missions to the public. He is currently working with the Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission, which hopes to find a planet just like earth.

Being unconventional in large organizations is challenging, especially if the organization has never had a position like yours. Dan’s non linear method of developing ideas, such as taking pictures of circles and spheres, looking at his shadow, and playing with sand has helped him come up with a variety of ways to communicate the core concepts of the TPF mission. Once seen, the projects are well received. The following is a description of three of them:

1. The Playground
If a grain of sand represented an entire galaxy, you would need seven rooms full of sand to contain the universe. I have taken a single grain of sand, which represents our Milky Way galaxy, and drilled a hole 1/10th the size of the grain of sand into it. This hole represents where we have already found over 100 planets. The grain is seen under a magnifying glass.

It will be placed in a space where people can play in this enormous amount of sand and imagine running their fingers through millions of galaxies. Each grain of sand, or galaxy, contains 100’s of billions of stars. To see the insignificant area we have looked for earth-like planets is powerful. This installation is scalable and can be altered in many ways to custom fit various locations.

2. Light / Shadow
A 25ft wide by 13ft tall screen has both a movie and a spot light shining on it. The movie cannot be seen because the spot light is so bright, but as soon as a person walks between the spot light and the screen their shadow hits the screen revealing the movie inside their shadow. When they walk away the movie disappears. This piece conveys the most difficult part of finding earth-like planets, that we need to block out the light of a star to see the small dim light of an earth-like planet.

3. Star Field
A large field of glowing locked boxes mounted on poles represent each of the 100 or more stars that TPF will look at for earth-like planets. Our star will be the only box unlocked and opened because we know the planets around our sun. As precursor missions find more planets the lights inside the other boxes will update to represent the new planets. When an earth-like planet is found the box will turn to white. Each box is connected to a motion sensor so that as people walk through the boxes twinkle. Since each box represents a star, the sculpture will be solar powered.

Biography: Dan Goods is an artist in residence at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Radio Astronomy: The Space Station is a digital art project/science which broadcasts sounds intercepted from space live on the internet and on the airwaves.
The project is a collaboration between r a d i o q u a l i a and radio telescopes located throughout the world. Together we will create ‘radio astronomy’ in the literal sense – a radio station devoted to broadcasting audio from our cosmos.
Listeners will encounter it in one of three discrete manifestations: as a sound installation; as a live on-air FM radio station broadcast at selected locations around the world; and as an online audio stream accessed via a website.
Listeners will hear the audio output of radio telescopes located in different countries around the world. The content of the live transmission will depend on the objects being observed by the telescopes. On any given occasion listeners may hear any of the planets in our solar system, radiation from the Sun, activity from far-off pulsars or quasars or other astronomical phenomena. If the telescopes are not making active observations when a listener tunes in, they will hear sounds collected in past observations.

Radio Astronomy: The Space Station has been supported by the Daniel Langlois Foundation.

A preliminary version was exhibited at the Museum of European Photography in Paris, France in September 2003. Along with the installation, Open Sky, it won the Leonardo Art Award.

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1. Introduction Space utilization were focused on Communication service, Earth and astronomical observation using satellites and science research such as material / life science on the Space Shuttle.
But now, new activities which are different from established research and development fields are starting on the ISS (International Space Station) when human’s activity area is extending to space by constructing of the permanent manned base, ISS. This paper reports JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) cultural utilization promotion.

2. Activity Summary
JAXA established KIBO Utilization Promotion Office to respond to user’s various request, and to develop new ISS utilization fields as promotion activities. Then we concluded several joint researches with artists groups.
2.1 – Purpose of JAXA’s Cultural Utilization Promotion
JAXA aims to promote cultural utilization by the next significance which the ISS program has.
(1) Cultivate citizens of the Earth
(2) Exploit human future
(3) Creative new value in space utilization
And purpose of joint grand research activity is to search essence of space and human beings by viewpoint of creative and formative arts.
2.2 – Outline of Activity
Main activities are (1) Art and (2) Dance.
(1)Art
In this field, artist group study new interior design in microgravity, search new art by the viewpoint from outer space, and investigate and analyze astronaut’s experiences and information sources at artist viewpoint. Then, they demonstrated their works under microgravity by parabolic flight as part of their research.
And we held the symposium and workshop to present these activities. Much audience participated, and several media reported it with TV news and newspapers.
(2) Dance Ochanomizu University studied Asian ancient Dances « HITEN: Fly Over » in zero gravity and tested to simulate elements of the performance by parabolic flight. Recently, dance group starts Feasibility Study about posture in microgravity.

3. Future View
As a result of these activities, we find out possibility of cultural activity in ISS. So we promote it by following strategy which is (1) Community cultivation, (2) Construction of utilization system for JEM (Japanese Experiment Module) in the future, (3) Strengthening of support system.

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Humans from diverse cultures have venerated, observed, and studied the Sun for thousands of years. The Sun, our nearest star, provides heat and energy, is the cause of the seasons, and generates space weather effects that influence our technology-dependent society. The Sun and its connection to Earth has always been a source of inspiration to artists and scientists alike. The Sun is also part of indigenous tradition, art, and culture. The Inca believed that the Sun had the power to make things grow – and it does, providing us with the heat and energy that are essential to our survival. From a NASA perspective, Sun-Earth Connection research investigates the effects of our active Sun on the Earth and other planets, namely, the interaction of the solar wind and other dynamic space weather phenomena with the solar system. We present plans for Sun-Earth Day 2005, a yearly celebration of the Sun-Earth Connection sponsored by NASA, UC Berkeley and the Exploratorium. « Sunwatchers Across Time: Sun-Earth Day from Ancient and Modern Solar Observatories » will explore the following themes:

– Understanding the mysteries of the Sun has been a primary motivator for Sun watchers over time
– The Sun is a dynamic, magnetic star that impacts the Earth and other planets in our solar system
– Human beings use technology (past, present, and future) to understand the Sun and the Universe beyond
– Human beings from diverse cultures have viewed the Sun as the source of life

Through a partnership among Native peoples, space scientists, artists, and museum educators, we will present to the public an integrated picture of the Sun-Earth Connection that blends space science, native science, art, technology, and culture.
Sun-Earth Day involves an international audience of schools, science museums, and the general public in activities and events related to learning about the Sun-Earth Connection. NASA, in partnership with the Exploratorium, will produce a series of webcasts from ancient solar observatories. Webcasts from Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, USA, and from Chichen Itza, Mexico, will be accessed by schools and the public. These ancient sites have rich resources in the form of beautiful rock art, impressive architecture, and astronomical alignments with buildings and natural formations in the landscape to predict and celebrate the seasonal cycles of equinoxes and solstices. Sun-Earth Day will feature these sites’ unique character as well as NASA Sun-Earth Connection research, missions, and the people who make it possible. This presentation is intended to inform and engage workshop participants in these upcoming events sponsored by NASA. We would like to investigate opportunities for collaboration between scientists and artists in the context of the Sun-Earth Connection and ancient observatories project. In addition, the Center for Science Education @ Space Sciences Laboratory (CSE@SSL), UC Berkeley, will host an artist on a short-term fellowship this year sponsored by the Arts Council England. The Space Sciences Lab will provide the artist with access to state-of-the-art space hardware fabrication facilities, clean rooms, satellite data downlink and mission operations facilities. During the workshop, we would like to explore ways to maximize the artist’s fellowship experience through authentic interactions with scientists and engineers, and investigate how partnerships between artists and scientists can be supported and sustained at CSE@SSL and other similar institutions that integrate disciplines.

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My presentation will introduce the space synapse concept – an interactive sculpture for the European Module of the ISS. I will go on to describe the process of research working alongside a small team of consultants on the feasibility study. I will articulate my initial motivation for working with space as well as the conceptual and scientific developments of the project during the feasibility analysis.
Space Synapse is a cultural space project providing a unique perspective on global community and environment through transgressing international boundaries from space as well as the existing boundaries between art, science and innovation. The concept is to engage the public through inspiration and imagination with an artwork that is an interactive « nerve centre » on board the International Space Station.
The artwork will interpret scientific data collected on board the Space Station to interact with:
1. Virtual and terrestrial art and design
2.Interactive website
3. Space education and outreach networks.
This will be achieved using an existing software system called I.P.V. developed by the Dublin based company Skytek. This system will be modified to collect and distribute scientific data using creative interface design.
In addition to generating a culture of creative innovation using art and technology, links on the interactive website with appropriate technology programs will highlight the European Space Agency’s concern for the global environment that is monitored and most clearly observed from space.

Biography: Anna Hill is an interactive artist working with medical and astronomical science. She studied sculpture at Saint Martins and continued her practice whilst working with children’s play schemes, Women’s refuges and mental health projects before taking up a bursary for a Masters in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London.
She has shown work at the RCA and the ICA, London, Jodrell Bank Science Centre UK, the Kilkenny Arts Festival, the Project Arts Centre and Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin in recent years.
Hill has been resident in Dublin four years, working as artist in residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Fire Station Artists Studios who provided her with the support to initiate the Space Synapse project. During this creative research period, she developed the Space Synapse concept that was copy righted with the production of a brochure in March 2002.
In March 2003 Hill made an R&D trip to Lapland, Finland where she documented and took recordings from the aurora borealis for « Auroral Synapse » an interactive art installation that premiered at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in August 2003. The work in progress was presented at the Tate Modern on the 9th May at User_mode, an International Symposium exploring Emotion and Intuition in Digital Art & Design.
On the 1st December 2003 the British Academy of Film and Television nominated Auroral Synapse for an interactive Bafta award in the category of best « interactive art installation ».

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The aim of the study
As we enter an age where activities in space take place constantly, it becomes increasingly important to examine human behavior in zero gravity environments from the viewpoint of arts and culture. This study aims at performing dances in zero gravity environments, and at making a comparison between the actual performance and what ancient people imagined it to be like dancing in such environment. Many cultures have imagined celestial beings flying, but this study focuses on the East Asian tradition, or to be more specific the murals of flying deities (hiten in Japanese) in Dunhuang, China and Asuka, Japan.

The beauty of the flying deities
The characteristics of the postures of the flying deities are apparent in the way they stir and look down. Especially from the Northern Wei period to the Yuan period, the flying deities « look down as they lift their upper bodies. » This posture is not commonly seen in the flying deities of India, and differentiates the Dunhuang deities from the Indian ones.

Creating a dance in a zero gravity environments
Amongst the postures of flying deities seen in the murals of Dunhuang, those from the early Tang period are said to have developed a style unique to the Chinese culture away from the influences of India and Uighur. There are also indications that this style has influenced the flying deities in Horyuji?Japan?. For this reason, the dance of flying deities we aim to create will be based on the postures?feet, hands,from this period.

Performance in zero gravity environments
Parabolic flight: test subjects boarded an airplane to simulate elements of the performance in zero gravity environments.
1) Defining the basic patterns for the dance
The task was to look down as one lifted the upper body
2) Defining the basic patterns for a duo dance
A pattern close to the mural paintings of Horyuji?Japan?, and one close to those of Dunhuang. Coordinated movements between two dancers such as the usage of silk scarves and the throwing of flowers.

Review of the performance in zero gravity.
Two parabolic flights were made to test the performance in zero gravity. The first flight proved difficult for the test subjects to familiarize with zero gravity and 2 G environments. They could barely take the posture of looking down while lifting their upper bodies. During the second flight, attempts were made to take postures similar to the ones depicted in the murals of at Horyuji and Dunhuang, and to throw flower-like objects between the test subjects. The following points became apparent as a result.
1. It is relatively easy to bend the body forward and backward, taking on the shape of letter U.
Movements in the mid air resembles the movements of fish in the water.
The effects of silk scarves were limited because there is no wind, therefore, there is a need to devise something else.
Props such as the flower-like object that was used this time, should follow a track independently. In this regard, the flower-like object, which was equipped with a sensor to prevent its contact with the walls, was a success since rotated on its own showing a beautiful track.
The two attempts at reenacting a dance of the flying deities in zero gravity shows a possibility of realizing the ancient people’s adoration of the celestial world, and also demonstrates an important clue in studying effective movements in zero gravity.

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Voices from the Noosphere is a sonic sculpture intended both for appreciation by human audition, and for interstellar transmission across electromagnetic frequencies. The source material for Voices from the Noosphere is derived from the radio signals of cosmic phenomena such as pulsars or solar flare activity.
At the compositional core of the project are code components written in cSound that extract envelope information from the radio signal sources. This envelope data can be used as a base for physical modeling of new sounds, related to the original but undergoing progressive sequence of morphing.
This new material plays as counterpoint to the source, creating a polyphony of human and interstellar gestures.
Once complete, the two distinct but related voices can be transduced into electromagnetic frequency. This process is to reflect the relationship between frequency, duration and amplitude, shaping the body of an actual transmission. The outbound signal is not a carrier with frequency modulation encoding data. Rather, Voices from the Noosphere is a silent recreation of our audible constructs.
The heavens have inspired music for as long as homo sapiens has made note of the powerful resonance between our body, our environment, and the sounds created by each. The aboriginal didgeridoo is used to contemplate Dreamtime, a place modern science is cautiously approaching through quantum physics.
Medieval European theorists posited the Music of the Spheres as a mode for creation. Into this new millennium, composer Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet have incorporated NASA recordings of space artifacts into recent performances.
Voices from the Noosphere lies within this tradition of exploration, contemplation and representation.
The representation of electromagnetic frequency in the sonic spectrum is not unusual: recent results of helioseismography have been transduced into audible spectrum. Indeed, the lowest sound wave has been identified – as a b flat -, suggesting that although sound will not travel through the vacuum of space, our universe resonates with meaning.
A future phase of the project will be to allow for this process – in code and in performance – to occur in real time.
This envisions a scenario in which received radio signals – perhaps from solar flare activity – are incorporated into a sonic configuration that is then re-transmitted as a companion signal to the original stellar event.
The concept of the Noosphere incorporates all mindful, reflective and expressive gestures of intelligence that accrete around the Gaian substrate. The Noosphere includes all terrestrial voices if intelligence – Homo sapiens and others. With the development of broadcast technology, the web of our expression now extends to space. This project allows for a gesture of intent and beauty to be raised as counterpoint that is reflective of a human response to the cosmos.

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The Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) was founded in 2003 to assist artists in exploring space as a venue for artistic activity. Within ZGAC, the author’s focus is on devising programs that include artists from countries that have limited access to the equipment and mechanisms used in space development. At the 7th Workshop on Space and the Arts, ZGAC co-founder Laura Knott will present The Global Space Art Community, a new program that builds on her experience in organizing international artistic collaborations (Worldwide Simultaneous Dance, 1998), and on the parabolic flight experience of ZGAC co-founders Lorelei Lissowsky and Frank Pietronigro.
Although the exploration of space has been characterized by geopolitical divisions and nationalism, the effort has always been global in scope. One indicator of the global reach of international space programs is the extensive network of terrestrial tracking stations operated by the space agencies. NASA and ESA alone operate tracking stations on five continents and the Pacific Islands. Tracking stations located in Asia and operated by RASA, JAXA, and the Chinese space program bring to six the number of continents on which tracking stations are found.
Located primarily in remote areas, these stations make visible to local populations that research is happening « out there ». The tracking stations offer a unique opportunity to extend the space art community to include artists who are familiar with space exploration through the existence of a local tracking station, but who have no access to facilities or training. The Global Space Art Community is designed to bring together artists based in the areas where tracking stations are located and to invite their participation in ZGAC’s training, educational and parabolic flight programs.
The presentation will focus on the logistics of building the Community, including possible collaborations among space art organizations and space agencies represented at the workshop, possibilities for outreach to the space agencies who are not included in the ISS, details about locations of tracking stations and their impact on (or disconnection from) local economies, and proposals for maintaining long term relationships among artists who become members of the Community.

Biography:Laura Knott’s: Co-Founder and Co-Assistant Director, Zero Gravity Arts Consortium Choreographer and Multimedia Artist
Frank Pietronigro’s Biography: Artist

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The use of digital technologies and Medias are expanding. Pervasive computing/mixed reality are expanding into many fields including architecture, art and design. The use of digital technologies can change and manipulate the human perception: In extreme environments in space, designers can take advantages of these changes of perceptions, by using pervasive computing as a design tool for space architecture. We would like to investigate and point out some of these changes using examples within architecture. We will discuss how the use of digital technologies can be used in space, exploring the challenge of pervasive computing / mixed reality in space architecture, art and design.

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« In this state you cease to be aware of time, space and causation. All this work attains its ultimate and essential form in the total realization of the liberating process of flying. » Luco Buvoli Artist There are many unexplored aspects of space travel that artists have yet to discover. To date, the microgravity experience on parabolic flight has been a popular focus due to the accessibility of tools and the nature of working in a brand new environment. Because of its tranformative abilities, floating in weightlessness can offer the New Media Artist an opportunity to transcend the limitations of their bodies. This offers new thinking and occasion for designing new navigational practices in cyber-spatial environments. The technological artist has the desire to escape gravity because weightlessness can provide similar conditions to their own digital environment. With the slow immigration into space, upward, away from gravity, we will not be able to take very much with us. Our belongings will be compressed into just symbol and meaning, digi-bytes of information. I will trace a brief history of Interdisciplinary and New Media Space Art from 1970 to the present: projects such as Counter Surveillance area 51, Gravitational field day 197981, Satellite Arts Project 1977, and will point out some indications for the future of similar work, and how this fits in with Zero Gravity Arts Consortium’s ‘Artists Into Space’ Program. I will focus on work that is interactive and socially relational and/or has an aspect of the sacred. This paper aims to highlight a new spirit of community and the interdisciplinary areas of research that cross discipline germination can bring. In my own work, a new project the « Teleware System’, I’m working on producing the first telematic art intervention in microgravity. Communication devices are placed on wearers in a socially interactive floating group, and the floating ‘Multimind’ communicates hyper- emotional and telesthesia reactions in weightlessness. In zero gravity the air becomes the medium, our ‘sense of self’ changes, new sensations of the body create an altered state of consciousness, we begin to think in a telesphere, remapping our psychic flow in the physical space. « You are still hobbled with up and down, warped by a lifetime in a gravity well. But you can think spherically, and the rest is just recoordination, like getting sea legs. Spherical thinking are you ready for it? » Stardancer, Spider and Jeanne Robinson « Getting used to the freefall condition will be an important challenge for a radical change in our thinking » The Cosmic Dancers, Goswami.

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Biography: I am painter /multi-media artist with a Diplôme d’études Collegiales – Arts Plastiques (Dawson College, Montreal- 1985), Bachelors degree of Fine Arts (Concordia University, Montreal-1989) & a Masters degree of Fine Arts (University of Guelph, Ontario -1999). I taught at the College & University level for limited periods of time, from 1989 to 1997. I had won four Government (project grant) Art Awards- two from the Ministère des Affaires Culturelles du Québec(1991,1993), one from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (1995) and one from the Canada Council for the Arts (1991). From 2001 to 2003, I had received seven various travel related Government grants -three from the Canada Council for the Arts, one from the Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec, one from the Canadian High Commission in London, one from the Canadian Embassy in Budapest and one from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada. With in the past fourteen years, I had exhibited my work in Canada, the U.S. and across Europe. My work is in several collections (including the Alcan Corporate Collection-1998). I had been exploring two psychological themes of masked and unmasked portraits from 1991 to 1995. From 1995 to 1997, I had been developing several series of works exploring light and movement in underwater environments. I exhibited my first large- scale art & science installation, titled The Glory Project at Star Theatre in the Planetarium de Montréal from 1998 to 2000. Since 2001, I have been collaborating with American scientist Dr. Walter A. Lyons, on multi-media projects based on an upper atmospheric optical phenomenon (associated with thunderstorms) named Red Sprites. During 2001-2004, I have been participating in art & science events in the U.S as well as many countries across Europe.

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The experience of being in space is available to all of us, if only we realised. Welcome to the Neighbourhood is a combination of sculpture and multimedia that helps people to inhabit the Solar System (without leaving the surface of the Earth). In trials with our prototype, we witness radical transformations of users’ relationship with the Cosmos. A signpost in a public space points directly at objects in space, tracking them as they move across the sky, displaying the object’s name and its exact distance from the sign’s location (which changes constantly). Close to the signpost is a kiosk with a touchscreen from which passers-by can select objects for the sign to point to. Any object in the Solar System (which is modelled in the computer) can be selected, including spacecraft. As the sign slews round to its target, the computer takes the user through space to a fully detailed three-dimensional representation of the object, illuminated by a virtual Sun. The user then has the option of navigating through the model or calling up information about what the object would be like to visit. Users can also change the rate at which time passes in the model (for instance to observe the orbits of the moons of Jupiter or how day and night passes on Earth). Welcome to the Neighbourhood emerged from a fine art project whose original goal was to make viewers feel that they belong to the whole universe (even if most of it is hard to get to). It involved objects that were clearly situated in space as well as on Earth. One of these objects was the signpost described. The tensions created in the transformation from pure artistic vision to public amenity add significantly to the success of Welcome to the Neighbourhood. Bastardisation has also inspired new departures for space sculpture. The project (developed by NESTA Futurelab) addresses a wide range of issues relating to the role of space art in people’s understanding of astronomy and space science. The original conception involved sculptures that located the viewer within stellar and galactic neighbourhoods in addition to the more local neighbourhood of the Solar System. These may be developed as the project progresses. Currently though, effort is concentrated on a permanent signpost, which will be installed in Millennium Square in Bristol this summer. The permanent installation has been made possible by a Major Grant from the Royal Society’s Committee for the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS). One of the principal goals of Welcome to the Neighbourhood is to empower users to make space meaningful for themselves rather than foisting expert interpretations upon them. This imperative stemmed very much from the origin of the project as sculpture. Another goal was to create a link between representations of space (for instance, computer models and photographs) and users’ actual experience of inhabiting a planet that is moving through the Solar System. This makes the relation between virtual representations and direct reference to real objects important. The resulting interface is intuitive and playful. It has been designed in collaboration with users to ensure that, a) it accounts for existing conceptions of space (which may diverge from astronomers’ conceptions in extreme ways); and b) it makes users feel that they are in control of the installation rather than subjected to it. This session, then, will address questions of public engagement with space and the role of space art in transforming people’s experience of ‘being in the universe’ with reference to Welcome to the Neighbourhood.

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Have you ever dreamed of seeing works of art and theory on Mars? Now you can! THE MARS PATENT is an interplanetarian project founded by Helene von Oldenburg and Claudia Reiche. THE MARS PATENT invites you to experience culture on a fascinating and promising site. Millions of miles away the red planet, Mars, now lies within your reach. Since the early days THE MARS PATENT committee has been working hard to find a discriminating place for your desires which allows a new sight on Earth. THE MARS PATENT offers its MARS EXHIBITION SITE (MES) to you as a free experimental area and invites every thing which does not fit on Earth but tends towards the MES. A thing? A real thing? Could be your idea, your object, your work, your project, your desire… THE MARS PATENT will take the full risk of handling, transporting and sustaining the concepts and objects up to MES, but can’t take any guaranties for their condition on Earth. Geographic Situation Mars is a dry, cold and poisonous place. This planet offers opportunities of a landscape almost untouched by human hands and furthermore of terrific beauty. The Mars Exhibition Site (MES) is located on the planet Mars near the equator in the north of a lowland area named Elysium Planitia. The two main geographic formations are the steep volcanic mountain Hecates Tholus and the bizarre Thalamus region. MES is a floating area run by THE MARS PATENT. Its slightly changing form is a strung-out rectangle. Think of an area of approximately 3148 square kilometers offering a wide range of altitudes and a rocky landscape filled with incredibly sized and shaped lava and stones as well as masses of sand and red dust. Specific Conditions THE MARS PATENT is a place for art and theory and sensible to its various concepts. THE MARS PATENT will exhibit projects, considering the special situation of the Mars Exhibition Site, e.g. geographic, geologic and metereologic aspects. THE MARS PATENT offers a suitable positioning for sculptures, internet relay chats, kinematic objects, art- and mediatheories, science fiction literature, videos, sound installations, manifestos, web-art etc. (Remember: There are no walls on Mars!) THE MARS PATENT offers the MES as a challenge. It asks for new solutions and concepts. So: send your thing to the MARS PATENT!

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Art is an essential part of life. We encounter it in our everyday life in the form of colors, forms, textures, smells, etc. These are absent in Space.
Space remains to a large extent an unknown environment to humans, but it is an ever- fascinating source of curiosity to human nature. Astronauts and cosmonauts of today are paving the way for the future space explorers, scientists, space tourists and even Mars colonists. In order for humans to live and work in space with limited resources for longer periods, we need to find ways to ameliorate the life in space – it is essential to transmit and expose art in new ways. Space will be the art gallery of the future.
But Art requires a medium to travel and to communicate. Our vision is to expose art simultaneously in Earth and Space through three-dimensional holographic displays, which use the very recent technology of electronic holography. Currently being developed in several laboratories around the world, holographic images and movies could provide astronauts with 3D objects otherwise impossible to obtain in the 3D-constrained environment of a space station (like the ISS). What will be shown on Earth and the ISS today will tomorrow be on the Moon, next week on Mars and next month on Venus.
Wherever there will be humans, there will be Art.
We will not only be showing Art but creating a better environment for the astronauts on the ISS. Through animations, colors, sounds and smells, a better place to live and work in Space can be provided. By showing hologram projections simultaneously on Earth and in space, physical frontiers will be broken and a bond will be created between life on Earth and life in space – there will be no limits.

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The general purpose of art is to communicate experience, either directly or through interaction with the audience. In parallel, tourism attempts to provide the experience – even if in an attenuated and « safe » form. A question frequently asked of astronauts is « what is it like out there? » As with Thomas Nagel’s question « What is it like to be a bat? » the like in this question is not so much a matter of « What is it similar to? » as « How do I experience what you experienced? » But in the case of Outer Space some of the experiences are not even accessible to the bravest of astronauts. No astronaut is ever likely to stand on the surface of Venus and view its volcanic peaks. Even on Mars any indications of life are likely to impose planetary quarantine constraints that will limit human exploration. However, we could use unmanned spacecraft to map the surface in sufficient detail to create a « virtual Mars » through which we could wander at will. Crude versions of this, which allow « fly through » visualizations of the planet, are already available. However, a full « virtual Mars » enabling individuals to « wander » at will would literally allow ordinary people to see sights which had never been seen before by human eyes.
However, the objective of « virtual tourism » should be more than to give people a quick five-minute sight of another world. The real world (and there are a multitude of real worlds to explore) is always more surprising than fantasy worlds of our own imagination, but expectations and imagination are a part of the total experience. The Caloris landscape is an example of how knowing what you are looking at changes the experience. In addition, the process of « getting there » – the unfolding of the landscape – is a part of the experience. Science can provide the landscape, but art will be necessary to create the experience so that anyone who cares to can become an explorer of the Solar System.
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Initially, the author will describe his experience of creating ‘drift-paintings’ in microgravity that he created as a part of Research Project Number 33: Investigating the Creative Process in a Microgravity Environment.
Pietronigro will show video of his creative process during a parabolic flight the artist experienced on April 4, 1998, aboard NASA’s KC135 turbojet, as a part of the Texas Space Grants Program Student Reduced Gravity Flight Program. The author’s intention, for this interdisciplinary collaboration, was that astronauts and artists can benefit from an exchange of ideas, each simultaneously educating the other, from their own unique perspectives. The author will discuss his belief that people engaging in artistic production, as formal flight manifest activities scheduled during long-term space missions, will help reduce stress, decrease boredom, build stronger interpersonal bonds between members of international space crews and rejuvenate astronauts for a return to their scientific and analytic activities. The author will discuss the partnerships that he is building with research scientists as a part of his Fellowship with the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. The author will discuss collaborations with scientists to create controlled research experiments, before, during and after his next parabolic flight, to reveal if there are quantifiable psychological, physiological and social benefits for people who are engaged in artistic activities during space flight.
The author will complement the discussion of his initial work as a Space Artist with presenting an overview of his current work as Project Director and Co-Founder of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC). ZGAC is a international space arts organization, based in the United States, that is dedicated to fostering greater access for artists to space flight technology and zero gravity space through the creation of international partnerships with space agencies, arts organizations and universities. Pietronigro will also discuss ZGAC’s Parabolic Flight Program for Artists, flown in partnership with Zero Gravity Corporation, and ZGAC’s Space Artists Educational Program. This program will mentor artists in space art methodologies, historical precedents, and organizational logistics as a way of building a long-term commitment between space artists and space agency programs. One ZGAC goal is to help contribute to the international activities and dialogue about setting the stage for teams of artists to have permanent access to space transportation systems including the International Space Station. ZGAC wishes to support international outreach through conference programs that will be organized as a way for artists, from all over the globe, to affiliate with ZGAC and experience the possibilities of collaborating with space flight technologists.

Biography: Artist

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The late Stan Brakhage, a visionary film maker of some notoriety, thought that the problem with the Apollo Mission was that the men that were sent into space were the kind of guys who go to Vermont for their holidays and get their wives to take the snaps. For Brakhage, the quasi mystical independent who was as likely to stick moth wings onto the celluloid as point a camera at an emerging foetus, this inflammatory statement registered something of the duplicity among « cultural professionals » with an astonishing scientific adventure. The transcendental expectation associated with space exploration appear to have returned a pessimistic vision of the universe; one that was continuous with the norms of the nineteenth century salon.

Elsewhere, for those with perhaps less of a platform for their prejudice, the more inventive and dramatic images of « infinity and beyond » were, and have remained and inspiration. To be sure there appeared to be some confirmation of Brakhage?s sentiment as interest in continuing space missions curtailed, but, as this workshop will argue, the stimulus to the popular imaginary of space exploration is as persistent and as vigorous as it was a century ago when one of the first film makers Georges Meliese (a wise showman if ever there was one) realised that the cinema – especially the cinema at its most irreverent – is the spokesperson of the popular imagination.

The preferred methodologies for understanding, how the public understand complex notions have patently failed to satisfy anyone. The popularization of the science and the arts have alienated professionals and largely been ineffective in transforming cultural perception. In the wake of every blockbuster book there remains the suspicion that nothing much has changed in that explanations of art and science are just so much grist to the publishers mill, and the search for another appealing strategy is made among the media literati. The public understanding of, and enthusiasm for the arts and the sciences, appears to be frustratingly illusive to the academic while in the meantime the dynamics of popular culture remains unexplored on its own terms as though it were some distant galaxy.

This workshop is in two parts. Its premise is that in order to begin to understand how the public interacts with complex and unusual ideas we must resist the temptation to reconstruct popular culture as a reduced form of professional intellectualism. We must explore methodologies for understanding professional/lay interfaces that are not refinements of the failed quantitative procedures of market research, but instead to reach for the popular imagination on its own terms. After elaborating on this polemic we will explore one proposal for research which is to examine the use of scientific ideas as structural features in successful mainstream film, television and animation which are, at first glance, merely lightweight comedies. We will show that at work in these products is a popular unconscious in the sense that there is an uninhibited discourse concerning professional matters which, with care, may be used to develop public interfaces that engage the public rather than for us to continue to appeal to a public imagination that we only imagine to be there.

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« They should have sent a poet. » –from the novel
‘CONTACT’ by Carl Sagan

THEMA: Poetry in Space represents the continued evolution and influence of the poetic arts within and upon human destiny. Future poetry will be omni-inter-accommodative, or will not be. The right of people everywhere to seek inspiration, which is, to participate in the poetics of being.

The paper asks and addresses a spectrum of inter-related questions:
What is the role of poetry in space/of space in poetry? How do we give the poetic arts a more functional and vital role in Space habitation? Can the remarkably unique ‘power of place’ that is afforded by the ISS Alpha be made available to poets, or at least, for poetic expression? What are the benefits, limitations, and challenges of poetics in an orbital enviroment?
Given the established, yet-still-evolving trend of ‘collaborative poetry’ [first emergent in the 20th century], can a collaborative poetics emerge and find a ‘home’, or niche, on board the space station [or other future space habitition]? How may this collaboration be effected?
Treatment: Inner & Outer Universes; Beyond Solitude, Communicating the experience of being in space. Remote versus near collaboration; Spatial practicality vs. ‘power of place’. Unexpected affinities: Textonic [shared authoring] Poetry vs. Directed Collaboration; Of Old & New Media Poetry.
Contiguous questions/issues: May alternative and/or new forms of poetry [such as: concrete*, ‘code’, sound, videopoetry, cyber/hyperpoetry, new-media poetry] be more suitable to the needs/realities/opportunities of space? How would astronauts, space scientist/engineers, and new media/techno poets collaborate on and/or facillitate the creation, accessing/displaying, and/or enjoyment of poetry in space?
Treatment: ‘Poetry by other means’: New Poetry for a New Century; Examples/analyses of possible technological FORMS [‘techno-poetics’] of collaborative poetries between poet/artist and astronaut/scientist are given…from text-to-voice, interactive ‘Exquisite Corpse’** [collaborative authoring] devices, such as ‘Poetic Context’, to more advanced tools/installations such as The ‘Dynamic Visual Poetry Landscape System’.
Constructing a ‘poetic environment’ in space: Installations and Collaborations; Poetic [Virtual] Environment and Meta-Poetic Interface; Wi-fi and Voice Recognition networks/interfaces; New Media/Hyper Media/Multi-media poetry works. Text + Image + Interactivity = Dyanmic Visual Poetry.
Poet and Programmer/Scientist and Artist; Techno Poetries as ‘heuristics’ for astronauts/space scientists in the creation/expression of their own poetry; finding the poet [or poetry lover] in the astronaut. The World Wide Web as a collaborative medium between Astronaut and Poet/World. ‘Satellite of (Love) Poetry’; technology enabled poetics: the video-conferenced ‘open mic’…’last exit to Earth’.
Summation: The author reviews the most possible and engaging uses/integrations of poetry in/for a space environment, and recapitulates his themes: Poetry & Destiny…’Future poetry will be omni-inter-accommodative, or will not be.’…The right of people everywhere to seek inspiration, which is, to participate in the poetics of being.

Biography: Michael Ricciardi is an Arts & Sciences educator, performance poet, and multi-media artist/curator [and former professional illusionist] living in Seattle, Washington, USA.
He has given multi-media poetry performances at numerous venues, including: The Collaborative Poetics Festival [Portland, Oregon, 2003], CoCA [Seattle, Washington, 2003], The Seattle Poetry Festival [1997, 1998, 2001], Bumbershoot Arts Festival [with ‘4word4tete’, 2001], and Arts Edge [1997], with solo performances at Lollapalooza [1994] and numerous featured readings throughout the Pacific Northwest. Michael also performed at the National Poetry Slam [Austin, Texas, 1998] as a member of the Seattle National Slam Team.
Ricciardi has produced two award winning video poems [Time Reflection Symmetry, 1997, Apocalypse Later, 1998] and has exhibited his inter-media poetry and video art at numerous shows/festivals, including: ATHICA [Athens, Georgia, USA], The Vancouver, B.C. Video Poetry Festival [2002], The Poetry Circus [Taos, New Mexico, 2001], The Cin(e)-Poetry Festival XXIII [San Francisco, 1998], Bumbershoot Arts Festival [Seattle, 1998], and the U.S. Super 8mm Film/Video Festival [Rudgers Univ., New Jersey, 1997], amongst many others.
Michael has had his poetry published in several journals/anthologies, including: The Exquisite Corpse [2004], The Surface [2003], Tattoo Highway [2003], Vox Populi [2001], Nobody’s Orphan Child [1996]. He is also the author of several mixed-genre chapbooks, including: Emergeometry [Warm Mango Press, 2001], and Space Junk [self-published, 2003].
Currently, Michael performs as chaosmosis, a collaborative project of spoken word, video, and music with local Seattle musician/performer Ffej.
In 2002 and 2003, Michael was the recipient of an Allen Foundation For The Arts grant to produce/curate ‘Future For WORD’, an exhibition of visual, experimental, interactive, and new media poetry, for the Seattle Poetry Festival [2002], and Bumbershoot Arts Festival [2003]. He is the co-designer [with Peter Oppenheimer] of the Dynamic Visual Poetry Landscape System [DVPLS], an interactive, virtual fusion of spoken, written, and visual poetry.

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A pixilated variation of extreme views from astronomy and elementar physics are shown at the Art Façade in Munich – the first light facade that can be fashioned via internet. Using a specially designed software, the color of 76 light panels spread over 63 square meters can be changed from anywhere in the world. The Internet Art Facade represents a field of not more than ten to ten pixels. Usually you attribute to such a minimal graphical platform only a very slight aesthetic and recognitional value. Hardly conceivable that cosmological questions could be decided on such a matrix. However, for an astronomer or a physicist, working on elementary particles, it can after all contain highly relevant information. With the view up to the history of the beginnings of outer space, the astronomer tries to wrest pixeled information from the universe. With a tremendously high technical effort even the slightest light information will be collected. This struggle for pixels compares at the same time to playing with the boundaries between visibility and invisibility. On the one hand the view up to the sky grasps the rays next to the visible spectrum. On the other hand it is impossible to avoid, that in this highly technical process of generating pictures, these same procedures do equally leave traces in space. Thus the generated pixels not only represent the limits of technical instruments, but also the attempt to ignore physical boundaries. This aspect of oscillation between visibility and invisibility certainly affects the selection of the following examples of picture objects, that are being captured and further processed through different electro-magnetic spectrums and through partly different types of telescopes. The facade will thus become a window that offers a tremendously deep view into the universe – restricted only by human and technological means: As you would like it, a window, you can look back up to 13,5 billions of light years into the origin of the universe. The project is examining the limits of the technically supported visibility. The view to the edge of technically measurable time in space will not just be directed into distance with the help of terrestrial and satellite telescopes, but will also vice versa be directed to subatomic spheres of elementary physics and will confront the pictures of deep space with the most recent collision pictures extracted from the particle accelerators. The culmination of the project will be the last cycle in March 2004 that shows besides « the Colours of the Young Universe » based on the recent VLT study by ESO (12/03) a live transmission of the subatomic events in the accelerators of the Fermi Laboratory/ Batavia Illinois.
« Switch off » Lüdenscheid Summer 2004 Tim Otto Roth is nominated for the first German Light Art Award « LUX.US » in March 2004. For the city of Lüdenscheid he developed the concept « Switch off » – a reaction on the urban light pollution inspired by the recent blackouts in Northern America and Italy. Switching of the current for one hour he wants to sensitize the 80.000 inhabitants of the city of Lüdenscheid for the night sky as a rarely perceived source of natural light and to remind to the infinite space above us.

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The world would be a better place if every person could spend an hour space-walking above the earth’s surface to experience for themselves the world as it truly is, a fragile beautiful sphere spinning through the vastness of space. We still live on an earth that seems flat because that is how we physically experience it in our everyday lives. It is how we express it as we see the sun rising in the east, moving across the sky and finally setting in the west.
Only the few people who have actually been in space, those that have felt for themselves the so called Overview Effect, understand and perceive the world in this wholly new way. The majority of humanity though never truly comprehends this reality due to our inability to easily break the bonds of gravity and propel our bodies into space to experience first hand the world as an interconnected whole.
« Liberation » is a space art project which re-creates the Overview Effect for people by enabling them to experience a weightless simulation of floating in space and traveling around the earth. It is an underwater movie theater (Submersive Cinema) which is constructed in a swimming pool and projects imagery onto a 7 meter wide, bowl shaped screen which is situated underwater. The 35mm movie projector, held by a mechanical arm which is situated over the center of the screen, is pointing straight down. From 1 meter underwater, in a waterproof housing, a 120 degree image of the earth from orbit is projected onto the underwater screen. 6 people at a time equipped with scuba masks, snorkels and neutral buoyancy vests immerse themselves within the pool to experience what astronauts call the Overview Effect for themselves. In addition a railing running around the edge of the pool allows an additional 50 audience members to gain a sense of the experience without getting wet. The ultimate goal is the placement of a high resolution video camera with a panoramic lens on the space station or a satellite which will continuously transmit a live world-view from orbit.
I have been working on the « Liberation » project since 1982 taking panoramic photographs which I wanted to have shot in space. I developed a technology that displays panoramic imagery to viewers wearing virtual reality Head Mounted Displays and at SIGGRAPH 1990 in Dallas I demonstrated a version called Videosphere with VR pioneer Jaron Lanier. With the the help of the IMAX corporation in 1993 I conducted a test using a 2 meter wide screen in a pool to demonstrate that movies can be projected underwater onto the inside of domes. As part of the experiment I entered the pool with a diving mask and found that seeing the earth in this new way to be a very powerful experience.
I am currently experimenting with different ways to create the imagery for the project by combining satellite databases such as the Geosphere project by space artist pioneer Tom van Sant with computer graphics clouds. Another approach I am researching is the use of an optical printer to re film enlarged, still images of the earth to simulate a movie of the earth from orbit. Recently, space science researchers from Canada’s York University have expressed an interest in using Submersive Cinema to perform studies into human perceptual cues while weightless.
At the dawn of the 21st century the human race is finally beginning to understand how physically connected we all are. To move forward as a species we must overcome the differences which separate us and act as one planet. LIBERATION is an artwork that will help people understand this ideal and allow them to see their world in a new way.

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In the last 5 years, the Arts Catalyst has commissioned more than 15 space-related arts projects. We have a particular interest in the democratisation of space and in exploring the wide range of attitudes and approaches to space exploration across different cultures.
There is the legacy of the space dream, responsible for the Apollo programme, now widely popularly perceived as dead/dying but still the primary driver for many space agencies, focused on the challenge and excitement of exploring space whether manned space exploration or by robotic probe. There are the idealist/pragmatic arguments of the space option. There is the lobby that says that the money should be spent on looking at the stars, rather than trying to reach them. There is the military interest in space. And there are the usual public/political utilitarian arguments that we do it for science, technology transfer benefits and, of course, for independent capabilities: ie we can’t let the Russians/Americans/Chinese « own » space.
There is the Russian philosophy of cosmism: an idealism that is still apparent when you visit Star City and the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and that has drawn us back there time and again. There is the Indian space programme, driven powerfully by the goal of benefiting the people of India: turning the eye back onto the Earth again. There are the Chinese: keen to show that they are a world power.
Broader even than these « official » aims of international space programmes, Marina Benjamin?s 2003 book « Rocket Dreams » argued that the Space Dream did not die with the Apollo programme, but rather was conserved and transformed, spawning Gaia and giving symbolism to the environmental movement, popularising SETI, influencing the idealism in cyberspace development and making bestsellers out of fantasy literature. And there is the approach of the Afro-futurists, as explored by the artists group Flow Motion who have drawn parallels with Russian cosmism, that the « escape » from the Earth can be achieved through music and transcendence.
The Arts Catalyst’s approach to promoting artists access to space facilities is influenced by Benjamin’s ideas – connecting space to contemporary cultural preoccupations. We have commissioned artist’ projects that have focused on the data, concepts and images from space research, and that have utilised « ground-based » facilities, such as parabolic flights, space agency archives, and relationships with astronauts/cosmonauts. We support cultural initiatives to democratise space, such as the Association of Autonomous Astronauts and the global Yuri’s Night parties.
Like most people here, we would love to see an artists on the ISS and a cultural dimension to every space programme, but our presentation at this workshop will focus on the need to recognise the diversity of interests and attitudes towards space, if space exploration is to be a truly global undertaking.
Our presentation will announce our new programme of work exploring these themes, including a major conference, performance festival and exhibition at the world-famous Roundhouse in London in Spring 2006.
Space exploration by a UN-controlled World Space Agency, reflecting the diversity of world cultures with an active artistic wing? We can only dream

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This paper is based on my work as an artist, work in progress, both theoretical and practical. It tends to prove that, in many ways, experiments in microgravity are a necessary basis for research into the areas of virtual worlds. More specifically the paper means to show how ideas concerning gravity enable us to posit working hypotheses for a unique plastic experiment in the area of sensory digital space.
The cornerstone of my thesis is the conviction that digital spaces, known as virtual spaces, are sensory spaces, i.e. they are perceived as real. Correlatively their interest exists in the creation of worlds with new properties where it would be possible to live unique perceptions.
As inhabitants the Earth, we are subject to gravitational pull. Weight has a fundamental role in our perception of kinaesthesia: all gestures, whether intentional or not, real or interiorized, are deconstructed in transfer and management of weight. From the first moments of our existence, movement is, indeed, a necessary component in our perception of the world. Therefore, our first question concerns our spatial life as lived in different types of gravity (microgravity, sub-aquatic environment, dance with weights) so as to understand our body-felt experience. Here we find basis for research into the creation of a sensual digital space, a world with new properties: the « nature » of bodily movement also characterizes the space, perceived, and therefore constructed, by each of us.
Isn’t the question rather that of the conceptualization and the creation of a space-milieu (espace-milieu)? Because it is definitely the milieu that induces a particular mobility, which stems from its physical, chemical, colorimetric, sonorous, odorous, climatic etc. properties as well as from our own self. Couldn’t the space-milieu be defined digitally as a set of laws of movement, as a force field, a system in permanent evolution?
Subsequently, what hypotheses could be posited so that the meeting/dialogue interfaces may induce a strong hybridization in and with the real place of exhibition (monstration), which is also an important and unavoidable part of the particular perception of the space-milieu? In this case, not only the testimony of experimenters in microgravity, but also the study of some creations of spaces in painting, sculpture, dance, music and architecture may suggest possible paths in terms of « form »: prioritizing the « in-between », dancing around the vertical… Aren’t these last two suggestions the conditions for tensions and vibrations, which, when felt kinaesthetically, do create spaces (through shivering to movement of the whole body to simple ocular movements)? Consequently, couldn’t we thus succeed in transcribing the density of a world, leaving passages for bodies to go through, therefore getting people to experience the space-milieu?
Moreover, can’t interactivity also echo experimentation in microgravity as a dialogue with strangeness? On the one hand, it contributes to perfecting the materialization of the virtual world; on the other hand, confronted with autonomous processes (Artificial Intelligence), the notion of « press button » interactivity disappears: the visitor has to accept that he or she is in a learning position when faced with their unpredictable mode of communication.
The visitor’s involvement turns then into « sympathy with » the virtual « thing », in its etymological sense of « feeling with ».
As a conclusion, doesn’t trying to get people to experiment with a hybrid space-milieu aim at offering a journey into otherness, as every work of art tends to do?

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Living in a confined environment as a space habitat is a strain on normal human life. Astronauts have to adapt to an environment characterized by restricted sensory stimulation and the lack of « key points » in normal human life: seasons, weather change, smell of nature, visual, audible and other normal sensory inputs which give us a fixation in time and place. Living in a confined environment with minimal external stimuli available, gives a strong pressure on group and individuals, leading to commonly experienced symptoms: tendency to depression, irritability and social tensions. It is known, that perception adapts to the environment. A person living in an environment with restricted sensory stimulation will adopt to this situation by giving more unconscious and conscious attention to the present sensory stimuli. Newest neurobiological research (neuroaestetics) shows that visual representations (like Art) have a remarkable impact in the brain, giving knowledge that these representations both function as usual information and as information on a higher symbolic level (Zeki) Therefore designing a space habitat must take into consideration the importance of design, not only in its functional role, but as a combination of functionality, mental representation and its symbolic meaning, seen as a function of its anthropological meaning. In architecture space-connection interfaces like doors and windows act like ‘sensory organs’ of the building. They allow inside-out communication, but also are elements, which allows the user to control the flow of media, which is light, air (sound and odor), which are communication medias as well as raditation and other forms of energy. In this paper we will look at the psychological and architectural meaning of these important architectural elements in relation to their extended meaning and importance in a space environment: Doors: representing the borderline between inner and outer space: mental, physical, and social. In all cultures a division of spaces into multiple layers can be found to divide private and public spaces, sacred and profane spaces etc. Illicit crossing these borders, as well as there absence can be perceived as strongly offensive. Inside houses, doors represent the borders between group and individual. The door gives the possibility to withdraw from or come into social spaces. It can also represent a signal of the degree of openness the inside individual as for outside communication. By looking on the meaning and functionality of doors we will suggest different models for designing doors in space habitats, due to its functional and social function. Windows: relate the human being to the outside and give the possibility to explore the outer world from within a safe home. Since Gagarin the importance of seeing the earth, while living in space has been observed. In this paper we would like to advocate for a closer connection between architecture, anthropology and psychology in designing space habitations, as a part of a new concept of environmental design strategy in space habitats.

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⇧ Participants

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