11 Surreal Works Of Art Inspired By Space

Collaborative art installation Space Odyssey 2.0 takes a look at what science means to art today. And you know what that means? Space geese.

By Colin Lecher | Published Feb 7, 2013 12:00 AM EST

Science

Inspired by a shared love of space travel, Brian McCutcheon and his 4-year-old son made space-age paraphernalia. Here, they try out some spacesuits. Brian McCutcheon

Click to enter the gallery

Space Odyssey 2.0, a collaborative art installation opening this month in Belgium at art house Z33, asks some big questions about art and outer space: What is the role of science in art? How has the DIY movement changed our view of space travel? What if somebody went to the moon with a bunch of geese?

It’s not the first time, of course, that space has inspired art. (The first sci-fi movie, A Trip To The Moon, came out in 1902, a long time before the actual Space Odyssey.) But space has assumed renewed urgency as a source of artistic inquiry in recent years, with the increasing privatization and popularization of space travel. We’re seeing artists who make home-brew satellites: What else can artists do with science?

The international group of artists contributing to the project have different styles–some work in the abstract, others are inspired by sci-fi–but everything is captivating and more than a little weird. Brian McCutcheon sends astronauts shopping; Frederik De Wilde develops surreal images from real math; and Agnes Meyer-Brandis re-tells a 17th-century story about a man going to the moon, with geese in tow.

Stanley Kubrick would be proud.

Z33

Geese-stronauts

Agnes Meyer-Brandis’ portion of the installation (“Moon Goose Analogue – Lunar Migration Bird Facility”) re-tells one of the oldest sci-fi stories in history: “The Man in the Moone,” about a man traveling to the moon with geese. Fun! She takes it one step farther, too, training real geese and filming them for the installation.

Control Room

Biking Through Geese–On The Moon

Space Shopping

Inspired by a shared love of space travel, Brian McCutcheon and his 4-year-old son made space-age paraphernalia. Here, they try out some spacesuits.

Balloon Chair

Visualization Of Quantum Fluctuations

Frederik De Wilde uses real science for SoN01R, a real-time visualization of quantum fluctuations in space. Complicated? Sounds like it. But NASA was impressed enough to ask De Wilde about incorporating some of his research into improved telescopes.

Hanging At NASA

Nelly Ben Hayoun created a “space opera” with NASA scientists. Literally: the scientists formed a mini-orchestra and created the score for a film tells the story of Apollo 11.