Excerpt from the 2019 Cultural Considerations Working Group White Paper
The MVA Cultural Considerations Working Group has only begun to explore culture about the Moon. It is well-recognized that the following exhibits a very narrow viewpoint. We will continue outreach through a subgroup of our Working Group and look forward to incorporating broader perspectives, including Indigenous perceptions and viewpoints.
The Moon can be understood to be the ultimate global ambassador. Because it orbits our Earth, it is visible from all continents and latitudes, engages the awe and fascination of all Earth’s peoples without reservation, and its dynamic phases attract our attention each and every evening – and sometimes even during the day. Certainly, humans have been entranced and inspired by the Moon throughout our relatively short history.
Our Moon is one of the first objects that our children recognize and name as they train their eyes on our night skies. Though our Sun is the giver of energy and life and dictates daily life around the globe, our Moon is an object that is imprinted on our psyche very early in our lives.
Since the beginning of civilization, the artist and the scientist have been interconnected partners in the task of communicating humanity’s understanding of the nature of the universe. The idea of space exploration began in the mind of the artist and artists have been intimately involved in space exploration from the very beginning. Long before the first rocket penetrated the atmosphere of Earth, artists were making the concept of humanity traveling beyond Earth’s atmosphere and on to other cosmic locations a desired goal. As humanity’s breakout into space is surely one of its most significant achievements and, more importantly, one that is essential to its future well-being, it is no surprise that space exploration is firmly integrated into contemporary culture, especially as we turn our sights on the Moon.
From a historical perspective, the first literary description of trips to the Moon, the Sun, and other heavenly destinations was likely the work of Lucian of Samosota (125–180 CE) who anticipated modern science fiction themes. Johann Kepler’s Somnium, written in 1634, is considered to be the first science fiction book about space. Both a scientific treatise on lunar astronomy and a remarkably foresighted science fiction story about a voyage to the Moon, it accurately stated that the Earth’s atmosphere becomes gradually thinner as one travels farther from the planet’s surface. English clergyman John Wilkins wrote several books about trips to the Moon, the most famous being The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638). In it, he outlined the idea that someday people might inhabit our celestial neighbor.
In the mid-nineteenth century, artists De Montant, A. De Neuville, and Emile Bayard created woodcuts to illustrate Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and its sequel Around the Moon (1870). A few years later, James Nasmyth’s illustrations were the first space landscapes to appear in a non-fiction book. He co-wrote The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite (1874) with James Carpenter. This book not only summed up lunar knowledge at the time but also contained an interesting series of “lunar photographs.”
Because photography was not yet advanced enough to take actual pictures of the Moon, Nasmyth built his own telescope and created plaster models based on his visual observations of the Moon and then photographed the models. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the inventor of astronautics and the first to derive the rocket equation, was inspired by Jules Verne and penned his own novel, On the Moon (1893).
One of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture, “The Starry Night” (1889) is an oil painting by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh. It describes the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise. The Moon depicted in the painting is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that it actually was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture, and even if the phase of the Moon had been its waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh's Moon would not have been astronomically correct but may have reflected his belief in an afterlife in the stars or planets.
Since then, numerous works of science fiction in both literature and cinema have used the Moon as a setting.
There is no doubt that the spaceart of the first part of the 20th century, together with the rapid increase of scientifically plausible, or “hard” science fiction literature, played an important role in preparing the public to accept---and financially support---the exploration of space. Among those early space artists, two stand out distinctly.
The first of these was American Chesley Bonestell (1888-1986), artist, amateur astronomer, and an architect who worked on the Chrysler Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and became a special-effects matte artist in Hollywood. Bonestell is sometimes called the “Father of Modern Space Art” because he illustrated the covers of science fiction magazines (primarily "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction") and numerous book covers. Scientists invited him to illustrate their concepts of space flight and the terrain of planets. Sometimes reality didn't match the austere beauty imagined by Bonestell (e.g. the Moon). He is undoubtedly the best known and most influential of the space artists associated with the earliest steps of space exploration. He not only depicted scenery on the Moon and planets, but also very often incorporated the practical aspects of exploration by showing the spacecraft and equipment necessary for that purpose. A documentary film: Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With The Future was released in 2018.
Another influential artist, Ludek Pesek (1919 – 1999), came across a copy of Sur Les Autres Mondes (1937) by Lucien Rudaux as a young man in his native Czechoslovakia, and was deeply impressed by that work. His paintings anticipated how the lunar landscape might look in a series entitled The Planets of the Solar System (1963), which was exhibited publicly and later published internationally. Not only were his accurate depictions of the Solar System highly acclaimed, his cosmic surreal and poetic visions of life spreading throughout the cosmos inspired later artists.
Cinematic productions about space are among the most successful artworks of all time in terms of audience size, popularity, and financial return and as such they have played a major role in stimulating and maintaining the public’s ongoing interest in space exploration. A number of these productions have focused on the Moon.
In 1976, German artist Adolf Luther proposed placing mirrors in lunar orbit that would reflect sunlight in order to illuminate the far side of the Moon. This Moon project, called Festival 2000, was proposed to celebrate the new millennium. This proposed artwork anticipates some later concepts of using the Moon to harness solar energy.
When Dreams are Born, a watercolor by Elisabeth Caroll Smith, depicts two young children launching a sailboat in a pond reflecting the Moon in the sky. This was the winning artwork selected by the cosmonaut crew as part of Ars Ad Astra, the 1st Art Exhibition in Earth Orbit. which included 20 original artworks sent to the Mir space station in 1995 as part of ESA’s Euromir 95 mission. The crew’s announcement of the winner was communicated during a live transmission that took place as Mir passed over the Euro Space Center in Transinne, Belgium, on November 30, 1995. Smith’s work remained on the Mir while the other 19 artworks were returned to Earth and to the artists.
In 1997, Arthur Woods proposed EuroMoon Seed – an artwork from his EarthSeeds project containing biological content that would be integrated into a lunar lander - to scientists working on the European Space Agency’s EuroMoon 2000 mission.
Earth-Moon-Earth (2007) a work by Katie Paterson, is a form of radio transmission whereby messages are sent from Earth, reflected off the surface of the Moon, and then received back on Earth. The Moon reflects only part of the information back: some is absorbed by its structures or lost in its craters. For this work, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was translated into Morse code and sent to the Moon. Returning to Earth fragmented at the Moon’s surface, this historical composition was then re-translated into a new score, the gaps and absences becoming intervals and rests. The “Moon-altered” piece was then played on an automated grand piano.
In 2009, Daniela de Paulis, in collaboration with the CAMRAS radio amateur association based at Dwingeloo radio telescope in The Netherlands created OPTICKS – a live audio-visual performance during which digital images were transmitted as radio signals to the Moon which were then bounced back to public venues on Earth. Giant Leap, an artwork developed by Richard Clar in 2015 in collaboration with de Paulis using her Moonbeam technique, set a recording of Neil Armstrong’s heartbeat to a musical score off the Moon.
In 2013, NASA scientists used a laser to beam a picture of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa to a spacecraft orbiting the Moon—the first laser communication at planetary distances. The team divided the famous da Vinci painting into sections measuring 150 by 200 pixels and then transmitted them via the pulsing of the laser to the orbiter at a data rate of about 300 bits per second.
Art Moon Mars is a program for public engagement, outreach, and space exploration through art with the goal of sending a Moon Gallery—a 10cm encased grid of 100 artworks resulting from an open call to artists—to the Moon in 2022. The project aims to serve as a focal point for ideas and visions of a Moon Village community instigating intrigue, imagination, and inspiration for space exploration. The project is supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and has been exhibited at the ESTEC Space Expo at Noordwyck, The Netherlands.
In 2011, a touring exhibition organized by the British cultural agency Arts Catalyst combined lunar narratives, fantasies, and futures to reimagine the future of the Moon. The group of participating artists, including Liliane Lijn, Leonid Tishkov, Katie Paterson, Agnes Meyer Brandis, and WE COLONISED THE MOON (Sue Corke and Hagen Betzwieser), Moon Vehicle (Joanna Griffin and ISRO scientist P. Shreekumar) declared a Republic of the Moon comprising a “micro-nation” that provided alternative visions of lunar life.
Museum of the Moon is a current touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram. A sphere measuring seven meters in diameter depicting the Moon’s features is based on 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface. At an approximate scale of 1:500,000, each centimeter of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 5km of the Moon’s surface. The installation is a fusion of lunar imagery, moonlight, and a surround sound composition created by composer Dan Jones.
British artist Antony Gormley has collaborated with the Yale astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan to create a virtual reality work called Lunatick, on display in London (2019). The 15-minute immersive experience sees visitors don a virtual-reality (VR) headset to travel from an imagined version of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, through the Earth's atmosphere to the Moon, where they can “experience” walking across the lunar surface.
“MOONS” was a group exhibition pondering wonder, worlds, and orbiting mysteries that was held at the Pasadena Art Center from July 20 until December 16, 2018.
A number of Katie Paterson’s works about the Moon have been included in an exhibition with an accompanying book called “A place that exists only in moonlight” at the London Tate Gallery from January 26 to May 6, 2019.
Fly me to the Moon. The Moon landing: 50 years On is a major exhibition of space art at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Taking place between April 5 and June 30, 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland, and later from July 20 until November 3, 2019 at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Austria. The exhibition is a journey through the history of artists’ engagement with the Moon, from the Romantic era to the present day. Divided into thematic sections and featuring over 200 artworks, the exhibition focuses on topics such as lunar topography, moonlit night and the Moon’s shadow, ailments associated with the Moon, low gravity, and the Moon as a mass media phenomenon. The exhibition includes two notable facsimiles of artworks sent to the Moon: Forest Meyer’s The Moon Museum and Paul Van Hoeydonk’s The Fallen Astronaut
A sub Working Group to actively engage in outreach, identifying organizations and individuals that will bring more depth to our understanding of culture, specifically in respect of indigenous philosophies.
Cultural Considerations Working Group ©2021 Moon Village Association