So, I realigned the focus of the project, echoing one of the latest theories in cosmology Lambda-CDM, and those earlier nicknames bore unexpected fruit. īy this time I was already struggling with the technical nature of sculpting intricate human figures and these new doubts about my message of simply celebrating science began to weigh on my mind. I know Accu has written about similar issues of misrepresentation and historical gender bias within the scientific community in their article discussing the importance of celebrating International Women In Engineering Day. The book reveals systemic biases against women and the sections on medical research and technology in particular hit a little close to home for my own project. This feeling was only compounded by my partner reading, and often reading aloud, the book “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado-Perez. To date there are over 500 breakthroughs and achievements inscribed on the sculpture, but I have lost count of the number that were overlooked or misattributed. However the themes of the project had slowly changed as, over the years of researching the discoveries celebrated in this work, an underlying counter-message had become clear. In 2016 I finally started work after the death of my grandfather, a maths and physics teacher who inspired a love of science in not only myself, but many other people. Īs I write this in December 2021 the project is still in progress, but my hope is to exhibit the sculpture at a venue that celebrates the superposition of art and science the creativity that stems from, and feeds into both, and that also grasps the precarious situation we technological beings find ourselves in. These new ‘golden records’ would show our voyage of discovery from the beginning of time to the unknown future ahead of us, and in reference to classic creation myths but with a scientific spin, I nicknamed them Atom and eV.
#VOYAGER SPACECRAFT GOLDEN RECORDS ARCHIVE#
This historical archive of equations and diagrams would be engraved into the surface of the sculpture - the ‘skin’ of human existence. I began collecting examples of scientific and technological progress charting the course of human development, from early number systems and geometry to Nobel prize winning research and unsung heroes. Inspired by these first interstellar messages from humanity, showcasing the diversity of life and culture on Earth, I imagined a pair of bronze sculptures - a man and a woman. "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet. In September 2013 Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system. Each of these craft carried messages, etched into Golden Records, explaining who had sent them and where they had come from in case they were ever found by intelligent life. In the 1970s NASA launched four spacecraft that would explore the outer planets and on to the interstellar void beyond. From earthbound engineering to cosmic explorers, artist and engineer Alex Kirkpatrick walks us through some of the techniques behind, and the evolution of, his passion project of the last few years.
A brief article about the nuts and bolts of creating a bronze sculpture to tell stories of human achievement and the beauty of the natural world.
0 kommentar(er)
