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Abstract
One of the byproducts of the space age has been the development of global
telecommunications networks. One of the most significant developments
in this field has been Internet and the World Wide Web. This media has
rapidly become a global territory for electronic expression encompassing
the scientific community, industry, all forms of cultural interests
as well as many forms of personal expression. Space technology and science
is well represented in Cyberspace and recently space artists are discovering
the web as a platform for their ideas and images. Today, approximately
100 space artists have personal galleries on-line or are represented
by their agents and their associations. Other artists have introduced
their new art projects for outer space via this media. Yet, others have
made artistic or personal statements which relate to space and its development.
This paper will survey space art that is currently to be found in cyberspace
and will present some examples of those artists who are using this new
media in more creative and interactive ways.
1.0 Introduction
Based on my experience, there are four factors that have contributed to the
explosion of interest in the World Wide Web (WWW). They are : 1. The development
of browser technology at the level of Netscape 2.0 and above, 2. the increasing
speed of information delivery via modems; 3. the decreasing cost
of Internet access and availability of web space, and 4. the perpetual and dynamic
development of both the hardware and software available on the consumer market.
As many have said before, finally the computer has become an interesting and
useful tool for the general public and there is no end in sight to any of these
developments - except for maybe the costs of accessing and publishing on the
Internet.
The space industry, with its university connections and high reliance on computers,
has been one of the pioneering industries using this new communications technologies.
Many of the most information rich and popular sites on the Internet have been
sites about space. Until the Clinton transcripts hit the net, the Mars Pathfinder
website during the initial phase probably held the record for the most “hits”
in a specific timeframe. Indeed, anytime an event with sufficient media attention
hits the world, it can be found and researched almost simultaneously on the
WWW.
As important as the capabilities of graphical presentation of information
via browser technology, has been the use of e-mail messaging systems
to exchange information. E-mail is a quicker and cheaper way to send
information than reliance on traditional postal services. In addition
to this convenience is the powerful use of e-mail lists and automatic
message technologies.
In the past three years, space artists and their organizations have embraced
and integrated these technologies into their repertoire of skills and activities,
so that today Internet knowledge and access is a prerequisite for their career.
2.0 The
I.A.A.A.
The largest and most active space art organization is the International
Organization of Astronomical Artists. This organization which began
in 1986 has grown to an active membership of 152 present members from
around the world. Over the years the main form of communication and
interaction was via their monthly newsletter “Pulsar” - a
black and white photocopied pamphlet - and through occasional workshops.
As most of the members used computers in some form in their work, regular
communication via e-mail among some of the members began in 1994. In
early 1997, the number of members with online connections reached about
40 and the organization decided to automate the exchange of information
and a “listerver” was setup.
A listserver - an automatic e-mail list - automatically posts the messages
and responses to the messages to all persons who have subscribed. This
development had a remarkable impact on the communications of this organization.
The amount of messages between the membership sometimes reached 20 or
30 a day - with topics relevant to space and art being discussed in
detail as well as substantial amounts of pure conversation or “chat”.
The frequency of mail traffic was too much for some members who opted
to unsubscribe. However, eventually, the level of noise leveled off
and today the listserver is the primary organ of communication and exchange
for the the I.A.A.A. membership. Indeed, the members of the I.A.A.A.
now know much more about their fellow members both personally and technically
than in earlier years.
For the new or distant member this development exposed a deep pool of
resources and expertise present in the membership which many were unaware
of previously. These resources range from professional astronomical
and astronautical information, to digital cameras, computers and printers,
as well as to traditional art making techniques. The sharing of this
information adds substantially to the value of membership. Last but
not least, announcements concerning exhibitions and / or job opportunities
appear on the listerver as soon as they are known to a member somewhere
in the world- a real advantage for those members who participate online.
The I.A.A.A. has also had a web presence since about 1995 which was
hosted and designed by Kim Poor, co-founder and former president of
the organization on the Novagraphics Website of which he is the owner
and where many of the members’ works can be purchased. Convinced
of the increasing importance of the Internet and the much publicized
rush for domain names - the organization decided to have its own independent
website and in December 1997 registered www.iaaa.org
. A visitor to the website will find the typical organizational information,
a history of the I.A.A.A., a space resources list, sign-up information,
a news section and guestbook, and a membership list and links to the
member’s web sites or to other places on the WWW where they are
present. In a “members only” section accessible via unique
password and userid there is more detailed information about the members
and specific resources that are only available to the paying membership.
Recently, an online version of PULSAR is now available on the website
so that “color” - which was previously not affordable to the
organization - has now been added to the monthly newsletter in electronic
form.
Thus, in a period of less than two years, Internet technologies have
impacted this space art organization and transformed it into a larger,
more knowledgeable, more resource-rich and more communicative group.
Today (Oct. 1998) , of the 152 members, 98 have e-mail access and 49
have their own web sites. Though it is not the intention of the organization,
the membership benefits of being online are more advantageous.
3.0 ars
astronautica
www.spaceart.net
is the home of “ars astronautica” a website dedicated
to exploring and promoting the “astronautical arts”. It also
hosts “Space Art News” which was initiated as an email newsletter
in the early 90’s by Roger Malina of the International Society
for the Arts, Science and Technology and its journal “Leonardo”
which has been tracking and reporting about space art in an astronautical
context for many years. It now appears as an email letter and as an
online publication more or less on a quarterly basis.
On the ars astronautica website one will find a brief history of this
genre of space art and information and links to other space art projects.
Also there are reports about space art related events and activities
including the art exhibitions at the annual IAF Congress and Space Art
Workshops held in Paris each spring, co-sponsored by the OURS Foundation:
www.ours.ch.
Major sections of the website have been dedicated to the project “Ars
Ad Astra” - the 1st Art Exhibition in Earth Orbit”, www.arsadastra.com
which flew on Mir in 1995 (Woods, 1995) and more recently to the “Space
Dreams” project which is discussed below.
Astronautical space art projects are often designed to involve a large
public participation. Therefore, the Internet is a logical place for
their presentation and this medium will be used by more and more artists
to their advantage. Ken Fair (Fair, 1997) reported last year about his
very successful, “West to Mars Collaborative Project” on the
Internet which invited artists to depict their visions of Mars in order
to generate more public support for this initiative. Recently, I opened
a new website about my Cosmic Dancer Sculpture project which was sent
to the Mir space station in 1993. At the URL: www.cosmicdancer.com
one can find a comprehnesive documentation about this art-in-space project
.
French artist Jean-Marc Philippe has placed his space art project “KEO
- the Archeological Bird of the Future” (Philippe, 1997) on the
web in the past year - www.keo.org.
As he intends to have a large public involvement in his project, the
web provides him with the most effective and economical access to the
global public - an access that was unprecedented just a few years ago.
Space artists, such as Richard Clar, of Art Technologies - www.arttechnologies.com
- are developing personal web sites for their past and future space
art projects. Another, Frank
Pietronigro, is using the web to publicize his space art activities.
Pietronigro recently made paintings in zero-gravity aboard a NASA parabolic
flight. His project was reported in several online magazines and recently
appeared on the New York Times’ website.
Ars astronautica will continue to report on these and other newer projects
as they become known and are developed. In addition, this technology
has stimulated a new form of portable exhibition which merges the aspects
of Cyberspace and Outerspace.
4.0 Space
Dreams
It was proposed to utilize the exciting new technologies of the
Internet to create a portable exhibition at this year’s 49th IAF
Congress in Melbourne. The idea was to avoid the cost and work intensive
activity of shipping artworks around the world and at the same time
have an interesting art exhibition that could be simultaneously shared
at the congress and around the world.
While I developed the Space Dreams website in Switzerland, Richard Clar
in California arranged for the necessary equipment by contacting sponsors
and Kerrie Dougherty, in Australia was responsible for organizing the
frames and finding volunteers to staff the show. These activities were
coordinated with the local congress organizing committee.
The title “Space Dreams” was picked because the space community
was coming to Australia - the land of “dreaming”. As artists
have been exploring space as long if not longer than scientists and
engineers, it was their “dreams” that gave birth to today’s
space program. Thus, artists were asked to submit their current “dreams”
and do so electronically.
After securing the exhibition venue at the congress and the support
of the local congress organizers a website was setup under the URL www.space-dreams.com
The original website
was actually a sub-domain at: www.spaceart.net/space-dreams
which was pointed to the URL. This
approach saved on hosting or virtual server costs and allowed the “Space
Dreams” to utilize some of the Internet technology already installed
on the ars astronautica website such as JAVA and CGI programs.
A “call for art” was made via e-mail and during two months
preceeding the IAF Congress, 20 artists submitted over 40 artworks via
the Internet. These works, both traditional media as well as purely
digital, were arranged in a virtual exhibition space or “Preview”
section and each artist was given their own page. The artists were requested
to submit a written “dream” which was included with the artwork
on the page. Links were added to the artist’s own website and to
their respective organization. To make the website more attractive and
interactive a “Guestbook” program and a “Digital Postcard”
service were added. These will enable visitors to the website to leave
their comments and to send artworks from the website to their friends.
The recipients of the Postcards get a message accompanied with music
and are invited to visit “Space Dreams” to see the show and
to send their own postcard. This type of service is very popular on
the Internet and can be a real “traffic builder”.
For the “physical” exhibition it was necessary to arrange
an on-site workstation, a high-quality printer, an Internet connection
and exhibition frames for the works selected. For the most part these
arrangements were handled via e-mail. Apple Computer and Epson agreed
to sponsor the necessary hardware and the frames were purchased locally.
The artists were instructed to submit versions of their work in higher
resolution and these were downloaded to a 1 GB Jaz removable hard drive.
Using an ISDN connection most of the high-resolution works were downloaded
in less than 10 minutes.
The website was also copied onto this hard drive as well as the programs
necessary to present and administer the website from the exhibition
facilities. Thus, instead of crates and rolls of bubble pack weighing
hundreds of kilograms - Space Dreams arrived in Australia via the Internet
and in the form of a disk drive weighing several hundred grams.
The “Space Dreams” online exhibition was not over when the
49th IAF congress in Australia ended but stayed online until November
2001.
These 20 artists
participated in the project: Dana Allen , Walter Barrows, Michael Böhme,
Richard Clar, Chris Couvee, Ann Contois, Contois-Reynolds, Marilynn
Flynn, John L. Fox II, Kelly Freas, Mark Garlick , David A. Hardy, Paul
Hoffman, Ana Kozel , Jean-Marc Philippe, Kara Szathmary, Dirk Terrell,
Michael C. Turner, Claudine Varesi, Arthur Woods
5.0 Conclusion
The Internet has
developed to the point where it has impacted the way artists in general
and space artists in particular create and present their work. On the
one hand it offers opportunities to reach an unprecedented global audience
and yet, this requires the artist to learn and develop a new set of
skills. Not only the artist but all aspects of society are discovering
and using this new media to their advantage and this means competition
for the “surfer’s” attention will increase in direct
proportion to the number of people using the world wide web. Space artists,
with their early reliance on computer technologies and their minds open
to the future have made an early start in using this new media to their
advantage.
References
- 1995
Arthur R. Woods, Ars Ad Astra: A cultural Experiment on EuroMir 95,
Paper IAA-95-IAA.8.2.04 presented at the 46th International Astronautical
Congress, Oslo, Norway, October 2-6, 1998.
- 1997
Ken Fair.West to Mars Collaborative Project, Paper IAA-97 - IAA.8.2.02
presented at the 48th International Astronautical Congress, Turin,
Italy 6-10 October, 1997.
- 1997
Jean-Marc Philippe, The Archeological Bird of the Future. The Sphere
of Mars. Paper IAA-97 - IAA.8.2.07 presented at the 48th International
Astronautical Congress, Turin, Italy 6-10 October, 1997.
- 1997
Arthur R. Woods, SEEDS: Synergizing Earth's Evolutionary Development
Spacewards. Paper IAA-97 - IAA.8.2.04 presented at the 48th International
Astronautical Congress, Turin, Italy 6-10 October, 1997.
Copyright
© 1998 / 2001 by Arthur Woods / The OURS Foundation
The original version of this paper was presented as IAA-98-IAA.8.2.01
at the
49th International Astronautical Congress, Melbourne, Australia
Updated: November 2001
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