Manifesto for a Republic of the Moon
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Arts Catalyst Moon of the Republic for a Manifesto Manifesto for of the a Republic Moon Cover: Rocks off the coast of a small island David Given ([email protected]) on the south coast of the Sea of Smyth. Parts: NASA, ESO/Serge Brunier of Smyth Sea Manifesto for a Republic of the Moon The Arts Catalyst CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 05 SPACE LAW from Whole Earth Catalog 07 MANIFESTO: FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON Rob La Frenais 09 MANIFESTO: WE COLONISED THE MOON 18 MANIFESTO: DANDELION BOOST Agnes Meyer-Brandis 20 MANIFESTO: WELCOME TO THE REPUBLIC 22 OF THE MOON Liliane Lijn PRIVATE MOON: Leonid Tishkov 23 MANIFESTO: T HE MOON IN MY HEART Leonid Tishkov 24 MANIFESTO: D ROSOPHILIA TITANUS Andy Gracie 27 SUPERFLIES TO BE FIRST ASTRONAUTS ON TITAN: An interview with Andy Gracie 29 CONTENTS OCCUPY THE MOON Tony White 35 SECOND MOON Katie Paterson 42 MOONMEME 1992 — 2012 Liliane Lijn 44 HITCHHIKING TO THE MOON Joanna Griff in 47 THE SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE FOR RENEWED HUMAN EXPLORATION OF THE MOON Dr Ian A. Crawford 77 List of thanks/Colophon 96 ********************************** ************************************************************ ABOUT THIS BOOK / INTRODUCTION Manifesto for a Republic of the Moon is a mixture of scientific papers, images, poems rants and other expressions that could make up a picture of how it would be, a half- century or more on from the Moon landings, to occupy the Moon. Initially a curatorial project, Republic of the Moon was originally shown at FACT, Liverpool in 2011. Agnes Meyer Brandis' Moon Goose Analogue has subsequently been displayed in the Great North Museum, Newcastle as part of AV Festival 2012 and then toured to Z33, Belgium and shown in the exhibition A Space Odyssey 2.0 alongside Andy Gracie's Drosophilia Titanus. The manifesto was launched for the opening of the 5 exhibition The Republic of the Moon at the Bargehouse, London in 2014. MANIFESTO FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON Exhibiting the works of: Agnes Meyer Brandis, Liliane Lijn, Leonid Tishkov, WE COLONISED THE MOON, Katie Paterson, Joanna Griffin and the Moon Vehicle Group. Some of the artists involved in these exhibitions have been asked to describe what an artist would do on the Moon. Others approach a Republic of the Moon from different angles. 6 7 ************************************************************ MANIFESTO FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON Rob La Frenais Wherever they are in the world, when humans and animals look up, they see the silvery disc of the Moon, in one phase or another, whether imperceptible or not. It is nearly five decades since humans walked on the Moon and we are surrounded by satellites and machines heading for Mars and other planets. However, the nearest humans can get into space is to perch on the International Space Station (ISS), a habitable space station in Lower Earth Orbit. Sooner or later, we are going back to the Moon, whether to mine it, to rehearse for a Mars mission or to live there. But how will human activity there reflect what has happened on Earth since the last Moon mission, to respond to the diversity and political and social changes that have happened since? Can artists imagine 9 what it would be like to live on the Moon? MANIFESTO FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON Artists are already taking part in many scientific endeavours, becoming involved in emerging fields such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, ecological remediation and enthusiastically participating in citizen science. If artists have resided in extreme environmental locations such as Antarctica it should be inevitable that artists will sooner or later accompany the next visit by humans to the Moon. But why wait? Artists are already imagining how it would be to live on the Moon. In a provocative pre-emption of the future, a group of artists have already declared in this exhibition a Republic of the Moon, here on Earth, with diverse objectives. They range from Liliane Lijn's desire to project the word ‘SHE’ on the Moon, to Agnes Meyer-Brandis breeding and training a new type of astronaut moon goose. Moon Vehicle activates the reactions of school children to India’s first lunar mission and Russia's Leonid Tishkov carries his own private, personal moon around with him. The history of an autonomous vision of the Moon starts well back before the Moon landings. In 1966, three years before the Apollo missions made it to the surface of the Moon (Barry) Miles and John Hopkins, (Hoppy- a former atomic scientist who was later to become the UK’s video pioneer) protested at the Aldermaston anti-nuclear weapons march selling an ‘anti-newsletter’ called THE Global 10 moon-edition Long Hair TIMES (the prototype ROB LA FRENAIS , April 1966, The Global Moon Edition of the Long Hair Times Issue: 1, p.1 (14 pages) OON M for the famous International Times). In naming it the Moon edition, between the Russian flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the Moon landing C OF THE in 1969, they were mocking the space race LI but also introducing the art of appropriation. In 1999, twenty years after a male astronaut, Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, a female, punk-influenced artist Aleksandra Mir, created a Moonscape on earth. Mir, who worked with the public art agency CASCO, FESTO FOR A REPUB hired a lot of heavy equipment to turn the I AN dunes near the entry of the North Sea Canal M at Bewwerwijk, Holland into a Moonscape. Echoing JFK’s pledge to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, she declared her intention to be the first woman on the Moon before the end of the millennium. After she had triumphantly ascended the highest dune with an American flag, and wearing a similar (sponsored) Hasselblad camera to that of Armstrong, she declared herself to be the First Woman on the Moon. The audience 11 followed her up in to the dune with the first MANIFESTO FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON Illustration from the frontispiece of 'The man in the moone or a discourse of voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales, the speedy Messenger' by Francis Godwin (1562-1633), published posthumously in 1638, London, J. Kirton, English School, (17th century). black person, the first German, and other popularly manifested versions of ‘first’. Going back a bit further, the first-ever science fiction novel The Man in the Moone, was written in the 1620’s by the English bishop Francis Godwin. In the book, the hero, Gonzales, was towed to the Moon by a flock of geese. This sparked off a relationship and fascination with the Moon which has inspired science fiction writers and the popular imaginary, to this day. For later writers it could be flying ships in full sail, flying discs or terra-formed travelling planets. WHO OWNS THE MOON? In 1967, two years before the Moon landing, the UN drafted and approved ‘The Treaty 12 on Principles Governing the Activities of ROB LA FRENAIS States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space’, commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty. It has been ratified by all space- faring nations and states that, ‘outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation or by any other means and that the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes’, and other similar clauses (see United Nations Office for Outer Space: http://www.unoosa. OON M org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html). Two years later, the US planted a flag on the Moon, but technically the 1967 C OF THE treaty still holds. Of course there are many LI loopholes and exceptions, caused principally by the failure to fully ratify the specific 1979 UN ‘Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’, agreed upon by only fourteen (non-space-faring) nations in 1984. FESTO FOR A REPUB This has led people like Dennis Hope I AN of the Galactic Federation to justify selling M fake certificates claiming areas of land on the Moon, based on the premise that the Outer Space Treaty only covers the activity of states, not individuals. Further complications came from the existing Russian spacecraft still sitting on the Moon, for example Luna 21 and the extraordinarily designed tank- like rover Lunakohd 2. The latter was sold in 1993 at Sotheby's by a Russian association for $68,500 to the internet entrepreneur 13 Richard Garriot, who now claims to own MANIFESTO FOR A REPUBLIC OF THE MOON the ground underneath the lander and rover, and by extension, the whole Moon. If, as expected, the Chinese space agency becomes the first nation state to return to the Moon – although the fast expanding free enterprise space sector could give them a run for their money – the finders-keepers principle will probably apply. They showed no hesitation in tearing up the Outer Space Treaty in 2007, when they smashed an aged weather satellite, Fengyun-1C with a Don Feng-21 rocket in a rehearsal for a war in space, filling near space with thousands of pieces of dangerous debris. We are therefore talking about a political, disputed territory, one ripe for artistic intervention. http://ummoa.net/evidence.htm Image Courtesy of The United Archipelago Multi-Oceanic Micronations (UMMOA) ARTISTIC MICRO-NATIONS It is worth considering the history of artistic micro-nations, and how they might affect the declaration of a Republic of the Moon. In 1984, a suitable year given their appropriation of totalitarian imagery, the foundation of the 14 ROB LA FRENAIS NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) took place in Slovenia, then part of former Yugoslavia.