Week 9 - Space + Art

In this week’s material the idea that I think the most interesting is the Cosmic Dancer. Created by Arthur Woods, the Cosmic Dancer is a 3-D sculpture with painting on its surface, and was launched into the space on the Russian Mir space station in 1993. Astronauts Alexander Polischuk and Gennadi Manakov spent some time with the sculpture, and become the only two human beings who had a chance to view it in space.

Under zero gravity in the outer space the sculpture was allowed to float and spin freely, which makes it observable from every angle. The idea of a sculpture without a resting point or given angle for observation is quite stunning, in that it challenges the ordinary procedure of creating a sculpture while determining how the sculpture is to be perceived at the same time.
 Cosmic Dancer stowed in the Mir space station
The surface of the sculpture is painted in a way that the color and lines mimics the motion of subatomic particles, thus making the sculpture a metaphor of recent discoveries in physics. Before creating the sculpture, the artist also made several attempts to illustrate the idea of integrating math and physics into artwork. For example, his painting The Voyager Series depicts the multi-dimentional universe in a both mathematical and artistic way. Although it was only a 2-D painting on canvas, like the Cosmic Dancer it also does not need a particular viewing angle.
The Voyager Series Paintings

Sources:

"Mir." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 June 2017. Web. 04 June 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir>.

"Cosmic dancer - a space art intervention by arthur woods." Cosmic Dancer Photos: Mir Space Station : Arthur Woods. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2017. <http://www.cosmicdancer.com/cosmic_dancer_photos.php>.

"Cosmic dancer - a space art intervention by arthur woods." The Spaceflight Of The Cosmic Dancer: Arthur Woods : Space Artist. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2017. <http://www.cosmicdancer.com/the_spaceflight_of_the_cosmic_dancer.php>.

"Cosmic dancer - a space art intervention by arthur woods." 3-D Kinetic Painting: Arthur Woods Cosmic Dancer. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2017. <http://www.cosmicdancer.com/3-D_kinetic_painting.php>.

"Cosmic Dancer on the Mir space station." Vimeo. N.p., 02 June 2017. Web. 094 June 2017. <https://vimeo.com/172233962>.

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