Books

CDs

Events/Exhibits

Film/Video

Paris, France; March 26, 2000.
Reviewed by Arthur Woods.


On Sunday March 26, 2000, the fourth annual Paris Space Art Workshop, generally referred to as "Rencontres du 13 avril", met in the house of Majorie Malina in Boulougne-Billancourt - a suburb of Paris. Marjorie is the wife of space pioneer and kinetic artist Frank Malina - the founder of Leonardo - the Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.

As in previous years, this one day workshop was organized and co-sponsored by Leonardo, the OURS Foundation, a Swiss based cultural and astronautical organization and the Sub-committee for the Arts and Literature of the International Academy of Astronautics (I.A.A.) The timing of the workshop is always coordinated with the week-long planning meetings associated with the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAF Congress) which attracts a large number of people from the international space community to Paris each year at this time. Approximately thirty artists and scientists working in the field of space or in a space related field were in attendance. The participants are invited to make short 10-15 minute presentations of their recent work. Discussion and interaction are encouraged and is usually lively.

The theme of this year's workshop was "Life in Space" with the intent to examine various aspects of terrestrial and extraterrestrial life in the space context from the point of view of the artist and the scientist in their respective fields.

Before the workshop got underway, "Life on Earth" was also a topic that was on everyone's mind concerning the lawsuit over the name "Leonardo" that has been an issue for the past months. Roger Malina, the executive editor, described the complex situation and gave everyone an update on the legal maneuverings, which are huge burden to this respected art journal that has been in existence for more than 30 years. Leonardo - the journal - is now being sued to relinquish its name by a French financial company which trademarked the name Leonardo in France. A legal defense fund has been set up and "My Name is Leonardo - Sue me" t-shirts are available to help the cause.

The first workshop presentation was made by John Allen, a co-founder of the Bioshphere2 project which, briefly described, is a controlled artificial replica of Earth's environment housed in a huge greenhouse research facility in southwestern United States. Allen showed videos of the complex and some of the activities of the researchers that spend months in this environment learning how to keep its artificial ecosystems running efficiently. The data from this project will be invaluable for future colonies that will be established off Earth.

Jacques Arnould, who conducts philosophical research for the French Space Agency, CNES, followed with a philosophical discussion of understanding our being or rather our "being-ness" in relation to or opposite of "the other". An understanding of this philosophical issue could have much importance when considering interaction with other life forms that are different from us.

Michael Benson, President and CEO of Kinetikon Pictures took everyone into weightlessness with a video of the first theater production conducted in the weightlessness achieved in parabolic flight. The event took place on December 15, 1999 when a group of eight actors and nine audience participants had access to the aircraft used to train Russian cosmonauts. Of extreme interest to everyone was the transition from 2G to zeroG in such a situation and context. Later in the day Rob Lefresnais, curator of the London based Arts Catalyst organization also spoke about his rather "unpleasant" experience with parabolic weightlessness. The first artist to actually experiment with parabolic weightlessness, Parisian choreographer and dancer Kitsou Dubois, was also in the audience and gave everyone an update on her current project with ESA.

JÄrgen Claus, artist, writer and Professor of Media Arts in Cologne made a presentation of his BIMODE solar art project that integrates photovoltaic elements into his artworks.

Californian space artist Richard Clar introduced his new space art project called "ALMA da AQUA - a Apace Awareness Initiative". Working together with Dinis Riberiro in Portugal, he is planning on using a sounding rocket to send an artwork containing water from various Portuguese countries, mixing them in weightlessness and then having the artwork "splash down" in the ocean. The whole process will be filmed during the flight and afterwards, the space-mixed waters will be presented to representatives of the various Portuguese countries.

Richard Sebra who is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Design Research in The Netherlands, gave an update on his "ISADORA" project that he presented last year. The design project concerns a module habitat for artists to be attached to the International Space Station. The project now has a website at: http://www.isadoramodule.org/ and was recently featured in an article on space.com.

Doug Vakoch of the SETI Institute and Vladimir Strelnitski, an astrophysicist from Moscow, addressed the issue of communications with extraterrestrial life. Vakoch gave a slide presentation that used visual images to describe a methodology for the development of possible messages which could be transmitted from Earth with the goal that they would be received and understood by an intelligent extraterrestrial life form. Vladimir Strelnitski addressed the other side of the issue, public opinion on Earth. His lively and entertaining presentation demonstrated how much influence "conformity" has on public opinion. Society's reaction to the initial discovery of an extraterrestrial message could become chaotic if the society has conformed to a widely shared opinion on the existence of extraterrestrial life. A more "open-minded" society would probably adapt more easily to such news.

Phil Saunders, former head of ESA television and now running his own multimedia production studio "Space Channel", gave a presentation of his personal relationship with the topic of life in space, based on his experiences and his insights with this topic throughout his artistic career. Phil's work was recently featured on the cover of Scientific American.

Irish space scientist, Susan McKenna-Lawlor gave a follow-up report on the project she initiated (and presented to the 1999 Workshop) over a year ago at the National University of Ireland. After introducing a young composer Rachel Holstead to images of space she commissioned her to develop a musical composition. A video was shown of the piece called "Small Steps" which took place at the University and was performed on stage in front a large projection of space images supplied by the European Space Agency.

French space artist and originator of the KEO project, Jean-Marc Philippe gave an update on his time capsule space art project that is planned to be launched in 2001. His website, www.keo.org recently won a major prize at the "ars electronica" awards and thousands of messages are currently being collected from participants in more than 60 countries.

Arthur Woods gave a brief presentation of a project that his OURS Foundation is developing in cooperation with the Maison d'Ailleurs (The House of Elsewhere) - a museum of Science Fiction in located in Switzerland. Called: "ITSF - Innovative Technologies From Science Fiction for Space Applications" the research project, initiated and funded by ESA, has been under development for several months. Its goal is to document and discover promising technologies that have appeared in Science Fiction literature and in the space arts which may have potential space applications. Woods has designed a website for the project located at: http://itsf.spaceart.net. The project was recently discovered by the European news media and on Friday May 19, it made the front page of the International Herald Tribune.

The workshop ended with more media attention. A report on Space Art made by CNN's Art Club for their special Millennium coverage was shown. The twenty minute TV feature was advertised heavily during the "millennium weekend and included coverage of the NASA art collection which is now touring the US on a train, the paintings of German space artist Mchael Boehme, who attended the first Paris space art workshop, and the space art projects of Arthur Woods' Cosmic Dancer sculpture, Jean-Marc Philippe's KEO project and Kitsou Dubois flying in weightlessness. As the reporter exclaimed: "Far out!".