COSMOECOLOGY Project comprises a collection of images and videos that result from the Sojourner2020 - MIT Space Exploration Initiative. One of the sequences corresponds to the Scanner Electron Microscopy (SEM) of the diatom culture exposed to martian microgravity. This technique consists of a scan over the surface of certain specimens through the use of a focused electron beam. The images have been produced in collaboration with Alice Fenxia and Joseph Sall from the Microscopy Laboratory of NYU. Another part of the project is integrated by three 3D models in which the artists simulate microgravity conditions in a 3D environment. Each line represents a diatom moving in the liquid medium. The third section of COSMOECOLOGY is a video created together with Álvaro Reyes, which depicts the transformation of the martian surface by creating an anaerobic atmosphere. An Artificial Intelligence platform was fed with images from Mars and Earth to visualize the process of terraforming.
The Archive of COSMOECOLOGY Project presents the video of the NASA/SpaceX Mission CRS-20, launched from Cape Canaveral on March 7th, 2020. This was the mission in which Sejourner2020 arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). The video was created in collaboration with Diego Estrada (editor) and Peter Rosenthal (sound and music). The Archive also shows a sequence of images related to the Sojourner2020 - MIT Space Exploration Initiative.
*All image credits belong to Nasa and SpaceX
Space exploration, life in the Universe and the encounter with the unknown raise thought-provoking questions for both artistic and scientific fields. Throughout this conversation, artists Luis Guzmán and Nicole L´Huillier talk with scientist Marcos Díaz about the significance of fiction, speculation, hypothesis and error in their own work.
COSMOECOLOGY Project prompts us to imagine the future of humanity or even other kinds of humanity that remain unknown. Those aspects certainly entail some ethical and political considerations, which might be tackled from interdisciplinary approaches that intertwine Astrobiology, Exopolitics, Bioethics, and Media Studies. This round table discussion highlights philosophical concepts and theories referred to life in space, simbiopolitics, ontological migration, and the envision of the new world to come.