European Space Agency Invites U.S. Artists to Present New Plans for Art in Space

April 23, 2004

San Francisco, California — The European Space Agency (ESA) has invited four prominent United States artists, Lowry Burgess, Laura Knott, Lorelei Lisowsky and Frank Pietronigro, to document their roles in the emerging genre of Space Art and report on the genesis of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) at the 7th Annual Workshop on Space: Technology and the Arts.

The conference is being organized under ESA auspices, along with its workshop partners, Leonardo/Olats, the OURS Foundation and the International Academy of Astronautics. It will take place, May 18–21, 2004, at the European Space and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

With the International Space Station (ISS) nearing completion, ISS partners have begun to investigate the potential for exciting new uses of this compelling orbital facility. Going beyond its established role as a center of continuing scientific experimentation, they are looking to its potential as a global platform for cultural exploration and unique artistic expression.

Technology and the Arts Workshops are seminal events in this exploration. They provide a window and occasion for professionals in the space and the arts communities to evaluate imaginative new ideas for cultural and artistic exploration in space. The May conference poses a timely opportunity and challenge for artists and cultural professionals from various disciplines to work closely together with space scientists, engineers, technologists and administrators developing new concepts, projects and strategies.

Based in the United States, ZGAC is the first international space arts organization of its kind. Its existence gives evidence of a growing movement towards cultural and artistic expression in space that will proliferate alongside scientific pursuits. ZGAC directly supports artists in gaining access to space flight technologies.

Frank Pietronigro, ZGAC Co-Founder and Project Director, will attend the workshop with his ZGAC colleagues: artist Laura Knott, past Research Fellow at the Center For Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, and Space Artist Lorelei Lisowsky, the Consortium's Assistant Directors. Lowry Burgess, Former Dean and Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, will attend the Workshop as Co-Principal Investigator, with Pietronigro, at the Studio for Creative Inquiry, College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University. Pietronigro was recently appointed an Associate Fellow by the Studio, with the goal of supporting ZGAC's Parabolic Flight Program development.

ZGAC is facilitating a series of parabolic flight projects that will set the stage for teams of artists to have permanent access to space transportation systems such as the International Space Station. The four American artists attending the conference will present persuasive ideas on how to accomplish this goal. ZGAC will arrange parabolic flights during which artists will execute art works in the "alternating gravity environment" of a parabolic flight.

ZGAC is affiliated with Zero Gravity Corporation, a private U.S. company< that will facilitate their flights. Zero Gravity Corporation was founded, and is operated by, former NASA officials and astronauts who will provide training and technical support for artists participating in ZGAC flight projects. Of the 17 artists slated to fly on ZGAC's maiden excursion in space this summer, three have previous experience in parabolic flight. And one, ZGAC Advisor, Lowry Burgess, had his artwork flown on NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the first non-scientific payload ever taken into outer space. Parabolic flights have been used for several decades to give astronauts the feeling of weightlessness, which occurs for a period of approximately 25 seconds as the jet rolls over the top of each parabola in the flight pattern.

Lowry Burgess, Former Dean and Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University and Distinguished Fellow of CMU's Studio for Creative Inquiry and the Center for the Arts and Society will present "Ground-to-Zero-Gravity-Linkages: Linkages between Earth and Space through Zero Gravity and the Concept of Releasement (Gelassenheit)." During the workshop, Dr. Burgess will propose development of new networks of large universities and institutional support in Europe, Asia, India, and the United States connected with ESA, JAXA, and NASA.

Burgess will present plans to facilitate wider artistic participation in the space art community, in NASA endeavors, as well as the Sparta Institute, including collaboration with the British Arts Council. As an artist, Burgess has been working in and with space relationships for the past 35 years. Among his notable space artworks is the "Boundless Cubic Lunar Aperture," the first official non-scientific payload taken into space aboard NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery in March 1989.

Laura Knott, Co-Founder and Co-Assistant Project Director, Zero Gravity Arts Consortium; Director and Producer, Worldwide Simultaneous Dance; past Research Fellow, Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, will present "Building A Global Space Art Community," a new program that builds on her experience in organizing international artistic collaborations (Worldwide Simultaneous Dance, 1998), and on the parabolic flight experience of ZGAC collaborators, Lorelei Lisowsky and Frank Pietronigro. On ZGAC's inaugural parabolic flight, Ms. Knott, a choreographer, will film weightless dancing.

Lorelei Lisowsky, interdisciplinary artist, Co-Founder and Co-Assistant Project Director, Zero Gravity Arts Consortium; and Founder and Director, Zero G Arts Lab, will present "Navigating the Spirit in Floating Worlds – Tracing the Interdisciplinary in Space Art." There are many unexplored aspects of space travel that artists have yet to discover. To date, the microgravity experience on parabolic flight has been a popular focus due to the accessibility of tools and the nature of working in a brand new environment.

Because of its transformative abilities, floating in weightlessness can offer the new media artist an opportunity to transcend the limitations of their bodies. Upcoming flights will precipitate new thinking and serve as the staging ground for new navigational practices in cyber-spatial environments. The technological artist has the desire to escape gravity because weightlessness can provide similar conditions to their own digital environment.

Frank Pietronigro will present his work as the first American artist to create "drift paintings" while he floated in microgravity aboard NASA's KC-135 "vomit comet." He will also speak about Zero Gravity Arts Consortium. Pietronigro believes that integrating artistic creation during long-term space missions will help keep the human spirit alive as we travel through space.

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