"Swimming The Rings Of A Gas Hypergiant" – Transmedia project for astronauts
- Paper ID
37813
- author
- company
LLA-CREATIS laboratory / CRISO research platform
- country
France
- year
2017
- abstract
{\it Swimming The Rings Of A Gas Hypergiant} is a heterogeneous artistic project based on the transformation and hybridisation of the notions of {\it transmedia} (Jenkins 2002), {\it hyperobject} (Morton 2010), {\it augmented space} (Manovich 2002) and {\it journey-form} (Bourriaud 2009). Its purpose is to develop new types of interactions involving the field of astronautics specifically within the framework of deep-space missions: a full experience of hyperspace. This project investigates the characteristics of the {\it hyperobject} (such as defined by Morton): its form is variable, metamorphic, nonlocal, widely spread in spacetime, interobjective and infinite ; the produce of interactions of a space of higher dimensions - the shadow of a form which overflows it and which is embodied in the perceptible and aesthetic reality through a film, a log, a series of videos, messages and outdoor experiences, as well as a range of sonic atmospheres. It relies on a fiction set up around the exploration of an imaginary extrasolar planet (a gas {\it hypergiant} whose physical properties belong to the gas giant as we know it as well as to abstract hypersurfaces). This object – half astrophysical, half conceptional – presents constantly changing characteristics disrupting its cosmological reality. With the aim to catalyse the relations within a space crew engaged in a deep space mission, as well as to foster random new connections with explorers of the contemporary art field, the co-production of this imaginary planet happens through the development of specific situations and processes both on Earth and in space. This action of co-production will be nurtured by respective human experiences of what one might call a decentralisation of consciousness. It is indeed about the question of raising an outlook from what Meillassoux would call the {\it Great Outdoors} – to take a detour out of our expected reality to reconsider our home planet, its atmosphere and {\it dark ecology} (Morton 2007). It is also about extending our apprehension of space, of potential exoplanetary ecosystems and extraordinary spacetime phenomena (whether physical or conceptual) through the filter of an extrasolar consciousness. This paper explores the components of this fiction, the protocols involved, and provides the elements necessary for the development of a complex artistic ecosystem that leads us on the way towards an exotic topology, opening thus to unpredictable spatial dynamics, potentially renewing the approach of space exploration.