Event

Space Has Arrived | Space Exploration Initiative at Ars Electronica 2020

 Wenjun Liang

Wednesday — Sunday
September 9, 2020 —
September 13, 2020
12:00am — 11:00pm ET

If nothing else, 2020 has lifted the veil, and a comprehensive global crisis is now drowning in humanity’s collective awareness. Confronted with the urgency of our planetary predicament, we revisit Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, a reminder that Earth is a spaceship with finite supplies and collaboration is the key to our collective future. We are at a crossroads, having simultaneously gained the potential to destroy all life to extinction and acquired the skills to fulfill the basic survival needs of all humanity. 

This year, we join Ars Electronica In Kepler's garden online program, a collective effort among the global to reconnect.  We created a digital spaceship to share the diverse portfolio from the Initiative.  Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in this digital world, walk around and encounter each other. 

At the Space Exploration Initiative, we are creating and deploying space technologies that envision a bold and culturally rich “new space age,” from astro-bacterial wearables, to open-access and shareable CubeSat constellations, through musical instruments for our space voyages and floating space habitats. The philosophy of “democratizing access to space exploration”—bringing moonshots and starshots into the purview of hackers and makers—courses through our work, and guides both our research platform and our extensive STEAM outreach efforts. 

We will invite the public to engage with the imaginative, critical conversations on our planetary future through three workshop events. We will also feature an exhibition on Sojourner2020, the first international art open call that took a trip to the International Space Station this March. Sojourner2020 is created by an unprecedented collection of international artists, bringing in knowledge from indigenous groups, queer communities and diverse cultures, as well as transdisciplinary perspectives.

The Sojourner 2020 artists:

Luis Guzman - bioarchitectures - Chile

https://www.guzmanluis.com/bioarchitectures

Lucia Monge, Xin Liu  - Unearthing the Futures - China & Peru

https://www.unearthingfutures.org

Andrea Ling - Abiogenetic Triptych - USA, Canada

http://andreasling.com/abiogenetic-triptych 

Kat  Kohl - Memory Chain: A Pas de Deux of Artifact - USA

https://www.katkohl.net

Henry Tan - Pearl of Lunar - Thai

https://www.henryandpartners.com/merchants-trinity-2/pearl-of-lunar/ 

Janet Biggs - Finding Equilibrium - USA

https://www.janetbiggsfilm.com/ 

Masahito Ono - Nothing, Something, Everything - Japan

https://cop21.net/

Adriana Knouf - TX-1 - USA

https://tranxxenolab.net/projects/tx-1/

Erin Genia - Canupa Inyan: Falling Star Woman - American Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate

https://www.eringenia.studio/projects.html 

Sojourner 2020 Artist Conversation
Sept 10, 11:00-12:30 EST | 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

Interplanetary Time, Communication, and Longevity workshop 
Sept 11, 11:00-12:30 EST | 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

A new moon landing workshop
Sept 11, 13:00-14:30 EST | 19:00 - 20:30 CEST

Wellbeing in Extreme Environments workshop 
Sept 12, 12:00-13:30 EST | 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

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