On the Visual Fine Arts in the Space Age

Leonardo,Vol. 3, pp. 323-325. Pergamon Press 1970. Printedin Great Britain ON THE VISUAL FINE ARTS IN THE SPACE AGE Frank J. Malina* I Whether or not the special physical conditions and experiences encountered during manned flight in space and during man’s sojourn on the Moon and other celestial bodies will significantly affect the visual finearts isan intriguingquestion.In this note, I use the term uisualJineart to mean:‘the discipline that has the purpose, by means of artifacts, of stimulating human emotions and of deepening emotional perception of selected portions of man’s environment’ [l]. There are three aspects of ‘space-age’art: (1) art made on the Earth with new techniques or materials developed by astronautical technology, incorporating visual experiences provided by space flight and exploration; (2) art made on the Earth to express either the resulting new psychological experiences or the possible new philosophical conceptions of man and of the universe; and (3) art made and used on the Moon and on other planets. Theage-olddreamof man to fly in the atmosphere like birds and to emulate the angels and demons of his imagination has been a realityfor some60years. It is true that only a very small percentage of the Earth‘s population has flown in aircraft and I know of no professional artist who owns and operates his own aircraft. A case can perhaps be made that aviation has affectedthe visual conceptionsof artists. Somehave attempted to givean illusionof the motion of bodies at high speed using traditional painting techniques, in particular, the group in Italy that called itselfthe Futurists [2]. More recently, some have developed kinetic art to give the viewer an experience of real motion or of change of color with time. Others introduced aviation subjectsinto their art and used in their compositions, usually called ‘abstract’, landscapeasseenfroman aircraftin flight.But,allin all, I do not find an art of the ‘air-age’ of broad significancefrom the point of view of visual conception to compare with cubism, abstract art, constructivism and surrealism. Man’s thoughts of voyaging to the Moon and other celestialbodies are of recent origin compared *American artist and astronautical engineer living at 17 rue Emile Dunois, 92-Boulogne sur Seine, France. (Received 4 December 1969.) to his old wish to fly. If the longer mental preparation for aeronautics and 60 years of reality have had only a small effect on fine art, can one expect a significant effect to be produced on artists by astronautics? A first flight in an aircraft is for most people a greater psychological experience than a first ride either on a horse or in an automobile. A first flight in extraterrestrial space is a considerably amplified experience, as we have learned from the reports of astronauts and cosmonauts. Most art of the ‘space age’up to the present time has been in the nature of illustrationsof landscapes oncelestialbodiesthat werebasedeitheronavailable astronomical information or on science-fiction imagination and of subjects taken from space technology [3,4]. Theseillustrationshave generally used the visual conception of producing an illusion of threedimensionson a two-dimensionalsurfaceby means of perspective geometry and of chiaroscuro. The Soviet cosmonaut, A. Leonov, has made a number of representational paintings of his experience of seeing the Earth from space (cf. Fig. 1). I have introduced into my kinetic paintings, for example, space flighttrajectoriesand orbits that are a realitybut cannot be seenby man or by instruments (cf. Fig. 2). Proposalsfor future spaceactivitiesare now being studied in the United States. These proposals include the operation of a research center on the Moon by 1985 with a staff of 50 persons. Staff members would live on the Moon for periods of up to one year [5, 61. One can expect that art objects will make up a part of the visual environmentof the passenger spacecraft for transport between the Earth and the Moon, and of the microcosmcreated for man onthe Moon. Thevoyageto the Moon only lasts about 60 hours. (To Mars it lasts about 36 weeks-a longenoughtime to become well acquainted with a work of art.) If the comparison of man’s entry into the domain of extraterrestrial space with man’s descent from trees to walk on land has...