QUEERS IN SPACE — What Possibilities Do You Imagine?

August 4, 2008

San Francisco, Calif. — Local Bay Area interdisciplinary artist, Frank Pietronigro, invites members of the LGBT community to voice their ideas on “The Potential Contributions of Queer Culture on the Future of Space Exploration” during a discussion titled “QUEERS IN SPACE — What Possibilities Do You Imagine?” to be held:

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
6:00 – 8:00 PM
San Francisco LGBT Community Center, Room 307
1800 Market Street, San Francisco, CA.

The artist wishes to serve as a conduit between the LGBT, arts and space science communities by communicating queer ideas and observations into contemporary international discussions concerning the expansion of culture in space. Frank Pietronigro he been selected to publish a paper about this topic during LESS REMOTE: The Futures of Space Exploration, an International Arts and Humanities Symposium to run parallel to the 59th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), to be held in Glasgow, United Kingdom, in October 2008.

Pietronigro states in his abstract, “That as a cosmology unique unto its own, queer culture has and will offer a differentiated contribution to the evolution of future space exploration while expanding the Arts, Humanities and Culture in Space in ways that are universally enriching. By offer this position, the author advocates that, as a species moving off their home planet, we strive our best to ensure that sexism, racism, homophobia, and others forms of bias and prejudice are left behind as we move beyond our planet to explore our solar system with the hope that if and when we meet other universal species we are able to greet the other species with a spirit of openness, hospitality and generosity.”

Frank Pietronigro is internationally recognized as the first American artist to created “drift paintings” in microgravity as a part of a United States National Space Grant Program while flying on NASA’s KC135 turbojet from Ellington Field at the NASA Johnson Space Center in 1998. Pietronigro is also noted as the first queer man to fan dance/flag dance in microgravity in 2006. The artists is an Associate Fellow at the STUDIO For Creative Inquiry, College of Fine Arts, at Carnegie Mellon University, and has been influential within the international arts, humanities and culture in space exploration community as co-founder and project director of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium.

For more information email frank@pietronigro.com

For more information on LESS REMOTE visit www.lessremote.org