Week 9: Space + Art

This week I really enjoyed learning about the interactions between humanity’s interest in space and culture/popular media. I genuinely enjoyed how our introduction video really framed the history of how mankind has always had a fascination with outer space and the world beyond us. To me, the first thing I think about is how much this has changed throughout history with technology and government support enabling humans to travel to space and capture striking images to share with the world (Vesna 2024 Lecture 5). It’s great to see government support for the arts and sciences (Pell 2014) and it is something that we should never take for granted. Something else I wonder however, is how popular art about space and the stars, planets, and comets have changed given that light pollution from cities has covered our skies up. Today, it is so much more difficult to see the stars than it would have been hundreds of years ago. In that way, I wonder if the arts about space were more accurate than they are today. 


Image 1: Comet


This was made the most apparent in the discussions of inspirational realism and how certain artists and their pieces accurately predicted how space technology would look like in the future (Perkowitz 2012). The eerily near-photographic realism of these works is incredibly intriguing in retrospect. What developments in the current technology inspired these predictions? Or were they simply images that just came to the artist without any outside influence? These questions made me really excited to continue learning.


Image 2: Earth from the Moon


Coming back to the prevalence of space travel in the media, I see that once news of the moon landing was released to the world everyone, at once, realized the capabilities of humans (Clar 2021). For me, I think about what inspired humans to explore space and why were we not able to do it sooner? The clearest answer is due to the lack of technology, but what drives these technological inspirations forward. After this quarter, I believe the answer is art. Art is what inspires new marvels of science and engineering. Without the artistic expression of the human desire to explore space, how could we as a species be so motivated as to explore it? This only makes new arts and media about space exploration more important for development (Vesna 2024 Lecture 6). When I think about popular media, especially cartoons, I also think about the kids that are getting inspired to pursue these fantastical, impossible fields in the future—which only makes them all the more possible.   


Image 3: Inspirational Realism


Sources:

  1. Vesna, Victoria. Space Exploration + Art: Lecture 5. 2024.

  2. Vesna, Victoria. Space Exploration + Art: Lecture 6. 2024.

  3. Pell, Sarah Jane, et al. "Towards a cooperation between the arts, space science research and the European Space Agency–Preliminary findings of the ESA Topical Team Arts and Sciences (ETTAS)." Acta Astronautica 105.1. 2014.

  4. Perkowitz, Sidney. "Inspirational Realism: Chesley Bonestell and Astronomical Art." Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 2012.

  5. Clar, Richard. "Giant Step: The heartbeat and words of Neil Armstrong returned to the moon." Acta Astronautica 186. 2021.

Images:

  1. Zuckerman, Catherine. “Space art by Charles Bittinger.” National Geographic. 2019.

  2. Zuckerman, Catherine. “Space art by Charles Bittinger.” National Geographic. 2019.

  3. Perkowitz, Sidney. "Inspirational Realism: Chesley Bonestell and Astronomical Art." Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 2012.

Comments

  1. Tristan NgoJune 2, 2024 at 10:59 PM

    Hi William,
    I enjoyed reading your blog and had the same thought regarding space and how it has been at the forefront of importance when it comes to the evolution of technology for centuries. I like how you mentioned inspirational realism and how artists were able to paint pictures of space developments that were seen as skeptical at the time. Moreover, I agree that ultimately art and in particular the artistic “expression of the human desire to explore” was one of the key motivators as to why humans took such an interest in exploring space. With this continued interest coupled with the emergence of new technologies, the future is definitely bright.

    ReplyDelete

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