Decor for Interstellar Flight, 2012–2013
Installation views: SOIL art gallery, August 2012
distemper, acrylic, pigment, paper, foam, glue, oranges
The super-lightweight painting panels in this exhibition are informed by conditions that might exist in a spaceship during a long flight to another star: close confinement, slow passage of time, a small community, a highly artificial environment. They are intended to act as a kind of calendar. One panel is added and one removed by the astronauts each day of the voyage. Over the course of a year this simulates daily, weekly, and seasonal environmental variation.
The psychological health of a crew during long-duration space travel is a non-trivial problem. When humans adapt to an extreme environment (an environment uninhabitable except when mediated by technical aids) the relevance of social interactions increases considerably. This implies the desirability of a flexible habitat and the development of a system of decor which focuses on processes, rituals, and interaction rather than rigid principles: an adaptable expression of a living society, or an adaptable appropriation to a future society.
untitled panel
acrylic and pigment on paper on foam
48 x 24", 2012