ArtScience on the quest for space exploration
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An observation and surveillance site, a territory to colonise or a rubbish dump in orbit. Despite the bitter aftertaste left by its commercialisation by private actors, space continues to exert an unwavering fascination on humankind. To imagine more sustainable and inclusive space futures, the encounter between artists and scientists appears a fertile one.
Available for viewing at the Pavillon until the end of January 2025, the Stellar Scape exhibition we looked at in some detail in a recent article proves it: the artists have not waited to actually head into space in order to explore it. Their sensory experience of space allows ordinary mortals who in any case have very little chance of voyaging there – the number of people to have journeyed into space since the flight by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961 is estimated to be 600 – to explore it through their senses and take a reflective look at this very space.
The visitor will not learn everything about space. They will instead carry out a thought experiment on their relationship with space
Jos Auzende, co-curator of the Stellar Scape exhibition.
‘If I had to explain Stellar Scape to someone who hasn’t heard about it, I would first of all say that it is not just another themed exhibition on space exploration,’ explains Jos Auzende, the exhibition’s co-curator. ‘The visitor will not learn everything about space. They will instead carry out a thought experiment on their relationship with space.’ A kind of sample of narrative threads on which one can pull from the theme of space, the works on show all draw on scientific devices to tackle a swathe of issues: the commercialisation of space, space debris, the conquest or even colonisation of space, space tourism or imaginary space worlds, etc.
Space belongs to the whole world, or almost
Without claiming to offer an omniscient view, Stellar Scape explores imaginary space worlds from a 360 degree perspective. Implicitly, it is the following question which emerges: who does space belong to? When we contemplate the sky, some will think about the origins of the universe, others will wonder if life exists elsewhere, or if humanity will be forced to leave and live on a planet X. But the question of whom space belongs to is more rarely asked.
In reality, questions related to the regulation and the sovereignty of space are quite recent. As recent as the first human activities carried out in space. It was only in 1957, the year the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was placed in orbit, that they started to be debated by the interested parties. Immediately afterwards, legal specialists turned their thoughts to the means of regulating human activity in outer space. Even before Neil Armstrong planted the American flag on the Moon in July, 1969, the first binding legal text focused on space had been drafted.
Known by its abridged title, the Outer Space Treaty was signed on January 27, 1967, by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, and later by a series of other Member States of the United Nations. This treaty governs the activities of the States in terms of exploration and the use of outer space, including the Moon and the other celestial bodies. In broad outline, it establishes that space cannot be subject to national appropriation and also decrees – it being the Cold War era – on the non-militarisation of space. The idea, on paper, is that space should contribute solely to scientific research and to the development of humanity. But these lofty principles seem to clash ironically with the practice of space exploration.
The conquest of space is replicating the historical trials and tribulations of colonisation
Annick Castiaux, Rector of the University of Namur.
‘The conquest of space is replicating the bitter historical missteps of colonisation,’ argues Annick Castiaux, Rector of the University of Namur (UNamur), with whom KIKK worked within the context of this exhibition. ‘Nearly all of the major space agencies are located in rich countries. The African continent remains the poor relation of the space domain.’ It is true that space exploration was built on the notion of conquest, with the American astronaut as the figurehead in the minds of the general public. In ‘The Language of the Night’, an essay published in 1975, the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin was already denouncing the fact that, even in literature, the imaginary space worlds were endowed with a colonising and imperialist dimension borrowed from the science-fiction of the twentieth century. The arrival of private actors such as Space X or Blue Origins – the companies owned by the billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – has not really enabled any break with this type of imaginary world. But this western hegemony is beginning to be challenged as a means of prospecting more inclusive space futures.
In 2018, the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the astrophysicist Erika Nesvold for example founded the NGO JustSpace Alliance, which wishes to think through space not as a final frontier to be colonised, but instead as a catalyst for a profound change in the ways we consider our relationship with other lifeforms and with the Earth. At the entrance to the Stellar Scape exhibition, the installation by the transmedia art collective Kongo Astronauts in other respects casts light on the demands made by the African continent. The spacesuit manufactured from the electronic detritus which lands on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and which predominantly originates in the western world is testament to a mutual cry voiced by African explorers who dream of a better shared atmosphere.
European countries on the fringes of New Space
The Old Continent unquestionably remains more privileged in space terms, but Europe must continue to take up a legitimate position in the face of the ethical, geopolitical or environmental challenges engendered by the ‘New Space’ movement. This new era of exploration – let us dare talk of space exploitation – is characterised by the increased involvement of the commercial sector, contrary to the first phase of the race for space which was dominated by the national space agencies such as the NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA). In a platform published on Usbek & Rica, Alban Guyomarc’h, a doctoral student in space activities law at the Université Panthéon Assas, maintains that ‘we have to develop a space sector ambition at European level, not in imitation of other powers, but with an ambition of our own which places science and space at the service of societies.’ He does not shy away from pointing out that the European States must, to achieve this goal, go beyond their national economic interests in order to offer a European space sector as a lever for economic policy and talents. A message also carried by the business companies operating at the Pavillon’s Stellar Lab, which are proving that Elon Musk is not the only one capable of being fully active in space. Amongst them are several Belgian companies such as Aerospace Lab, based in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Amos and Space Application. Together, they lead prototypes, fragments of meteorites, sensitive textiles and various phantasmagorical robots to engage in dialogue to question human impact on the planets around us, as well as the crucial issue of space debris.
Arts and sciences cohabit on the same planet
In the collective imagination, the arts and sciences have always been diametrically opposed. Yet, as we highlighted in a previous article on kingkong, the separation between the artistic and scientific disciplines took place relatively late from a historical perspective. Recently, the ‘ArtScience’ movement has also sought to go beyond the rationale of a mono-disciplinary approach to support the meeting of these two worlds, far closer than it would appear. Brought together on a territory which shares the same issues of breaking down barriers, the UNamur and KIKK have for that matter been working together for many years on an ArtScience approach in encouraging encounters between artists and scientists.
In the context of the Stellar Scape exhibition, the institutions have developed a programme of ArtScience residencies within the very heart of the UNamur pedagogical astronomy Observatory. ‘The university had already worked with KIKK on scientific mediation, but not really on the production of artworks,’ says André Füzfa, a Doctor of Physics and professor at the UNamur. Fundamentally, the artistic and scientific processes are kindred spirits. They are certainly very different approaches to the real, but you might say that they are climbing the same hill on two distinct slopes. The arts and the sciences are disciplines which practice experimentation and hypothesis. They require technical skills and rigour. They both offer perspectives on the real and carry meaning.
I am against the idea which would have it that science is superior and that it makes available its knowledge and its infrastructure in the service of art
André Füzfa, a Doctor of Physics and professor at the UNamur
During the residency, the artists have moreover come to question the results of the scientists and have managed to shake up their perspectives on the world. ‘I am against the idea which would have it that science is superior and that it makes available its knowledge and its infrastructure in the service of art,’ adds André Füzfa. ‘The artists and the scientists are in dire need of exchanges of opinion to continue to be inspired.’
The Doctor of Physics also calls out the eternal difficulty in subsidising the arts in comparison with the sciences. However, all of the voices interrogated in the context of this case file insist on the need for these meeting and cocreation points. Jos Auzende confirms: ‘we need to beef up the synergies between arts and sciences to work on our imaginary worlds. The works are genuine messengers of the sciences and provide aid in talking about scientific facts which are on the face of it difficult to grasp. And it also concerns a major issue to engage more audiences. We can see that in concrete terms at the Pavillon at this particular moment. One visitor will be in phase with a work for its dreamlike aspect, another for the scientific data on which it is based. The intersection between these two worlds remains rarely explored in mainstream cultural institutions. But I remain persuaded that at a time when science is being given a very rough ride, as it is today, when our relationship with the truth has become murky, the science issue must be made central and we need to ask artists to aid us settle the mysteries we are faced with.’
The odyssey of artists
The artists exhibited at the Namur heights raise several cosmic mysteries. During a guided tour, Charlotte Benedetti, the Director of the Pavillon, invites the visitors to fan out around ‘Leave Space’, one of the installations to emerge from the ArtScience residency. ‘The artist-researcher duo Alessia Sanna and Alexandre Weisser wished to visualise the exponential pollution, undetectable by the naked eye, at play above our heads,’ she explains. In front of us over 34,000 small resin cubes reflect beams of light and model the number of space debris fragments detected in orbit around the Earth. But they also convoke the probabilities established by the astrophysicist Donald J. Kessler. His pessimistic scenario already in 1978 considered that the too numerous collisions between this debris, producing yet more debris, could eventually and over several generations render certain space missions impracticable owing to the increased danger of colliding with satellite fragments.
Further on, the site’s Director has us stop before a series of portraits of asteroids, also the outcome of cocreation work carried out during the arts residency at the UNamur. ‘In “Potentially Hazardous Portraits”, I explore these potentially dangerous celestial bodies barrelling around our solar system,’ writes the artist Amélie Bouvier. ‘According to data gathered by the space agencies, in the event of impact, these asteroids would bring about immense destruction, even our extinction. In my artistic practice, I lean massively on historical research in the domain of astronomy. Astronomers and scientists in general do not settle for explaining the world. They also represent it through the construction of images, be they diagrams, illustrations, photos or equations. Some of these asteroids are not visible to the naked eye but solely on the basis of the interpretation of astrophysicists who rely on numbers and data. The non-scientists amongst us thus don’t have access to this knowledge, which raises questions about the value of imaging: to what degree are images, and more importantly artistic images, essential?’
Having gone back and forth across the exhibition, an overall assessment: the sensibility of the artists connects our senses to space and to the planets in a quite immediate way. Occasionally through touch, as with ‘Recombinaison’ by Véronique Béland. The interactive installation connects us with a meteorite thanks to a tactile sensor. This sensor allows us to receive a poetic message directly from space which is printed on a till receipt. Occasionally through hearing, thanks to ‘Earth-Moon-Earth’ by the Scottish artist Katie Paterson. ‘Moonlight Sonata’, the Romantic piece by Beethoven everyone is familiar with, was transmitted to the Moon in morse code. Once reflected by the craters and irregular surfaces of this Selenian body, the score returned to Earth incomplete. An automated Yamaha piano plays this new version, full of gaps, and evinces astonishment on peoples’ faces. Jos Auzende and Marie Du Chastel, the second co-curator of Stellar Scape, have genuinely sought to give value to the senses and to approaches to knowledge transfer via the emotions through different layers of reading. Without forgetting the youngest. The Pavillon is very keen on being able to engage with children, but without providing them with a rehashed simple version of the exhibition. This time, accompanied by Captain Future, an entire space has been dedicated to the littlest. Some works can even be touched. All the senses are called into play there, and young and old alike will experience a both immersive and reflective journey into space, infinity and beyond.
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