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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.