space is ace#3

Great art jolts us into a new way of viewing the world, and The Space Is Ace Collective aims to do just that. We want to bring together all those who look up to the skies and see what is really out there; the great big rock in the sky hung only by cosmic gravity, points of light which were sent to us millions of years ago, the giant swirling ball of gas from which we were made.

Space Is Ace will hold regular events in which we express our fascination with the universe, and we will regularly invite like-minded artists, musicians, scientists and technologists to work with us.

Inspired by The Machine Project in Los Angeles, Space Is Ace is keen to rework the tired and overly formal private view format, instead welcoming playfulness and experimentation.

The Space Is Ace Collective was born from the first ever year of the MA Art and Science degree at the prestigious Central Saint Martins.

Rank: Onboard Degenerate ArtistFull Name: Ms Simulation SensationPlace of birth: Via black holeEducation: HugeLast whereabouts: The internetwww.louisebeer.com Rank: Cosmic Wave Specialist Full Name: ESCHT // LA LUNAPlace of birth: the 14th DimensionEducation: The Galactic Assassins AcademyLast whereabouts: Tomorrowwww.laurenfranklin.net

Full Name: JJ HerschelPlace of birth: DeutschlandEducation: MScPhD Last whereabouts: Last seen making cyanotypes on the surface of Mercury.www.melaniek.co.uk

Rank: Origins Spectral InterpretationFull Name: Nera (Nebulae Nera)Place of birth: floating somewhere inspaceEducation: continuous Experiential learningLast whereabouts: Simultaneously here and light years awaywww.effluo.com

Louise Beer - Lauren Franklin - Melanie King - Marta Santuccio

Marta Santuccio

“The fresh and silvery flower fragrant with the breath of spring, withers at once, it’s beauty perishes;So the life of man, already ebbing in the newly bornVanishes like a bubble or like fleeting smoke.” F. Estius

The idea of ‘life as a bubble’ holds weight in scientific arenas, as in contemporary cosmological theory, scientists often compare cosmological happenings to bubbles and foam. This idea spans from inflation theory, to multiverse theory – the idea that the universe exists as one bubble amongst a sea of cosmic foam. In the constellation Cassiopeia, there sits a Bubble Nebula which measures over six light-years across, having been blown by cosmic winds. This idea even extends to quantum science relating to the birth of the universe, as some scientists believe that the universe exists as a quantum fluctuation from nothing, something that can be easily understood by watching the soap bubble emerge and then disappear within a matter of seconds.

Unempathetic NightLouise Beer2013

The main focus of Melanie’s research at Central Saint Martins was of the soap bubble. In 17th Century Dutch Vanitas paintings, the soap bubble was used as a visual metaphor to remind the viewer of the transient nature of life. The soap bubble exists for just a couple of seconds, a perfect sphere, reflecting and refracting its surroundings beautifully. Due to the dryness of the air surrounding the soap bubble, and the pull of gravity, the bubble eventually bursts. It was almost as if the bubble had never existed.

“Many and Strange are the universes that drift like bubbles in the foam upon the River of Time” Arthur C. Clarke

The Dutch Vanitas artists of The Golden

Age, likened the existence of life to the every-day phenomena of

the soap bubble, and now with a superior knowledge of the universe we can draw more comparisons. From looking at the universe, we have

discovered that life has only inhabited a tiny

portion of the entirety of time and space, and is therefore incredibly

precious.Alike the soap bubble,

life exists for a (relatively) short amount of time, before it ‘pops’

out of existence.

“In recent years developments in film technique have given birth to (or degenerated into) a particular aberration: the wide screen is divided into two or more parts, in which two or more actions can be shown happening in parallel at the same time…

…The only result would be chaos, the laws of perception would be broken, and the author of the polyscreen film would inevitably be faced with the task of somehow reducing simultaneity to sequence in other words of thinking up for each instance an elaborate

system of conventions. And it would be rather like putting one’s right arm all the way round one’s left ear in order to touch the right nostril with the right hand. Is it not better to accept, once and for all, the simple and binding condition of cinema as a succession of visuals, and to work from that starting-point? A person is quite simply not capable of watching several actions at once; it is beyond his psychophysiology.”[p.70]

Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 2nd ed.