What do you get when you put local artists, artist groups, students, space engineers, astrophysicists, creative technologists, and enthusiasts together?
Bengaluru is about to find out, as registrations opened yesterday for one of its first ever space-art hackathons that will focus on the relationship between space and art through ‘interdisciplinary work in the scope of Science and Technology’.
SPARTH is part of Thomas Heidtmann’s work as a bangaloREsident at the Goethe Institut. “One of the main ideas behind the hackathon is to get people who don’t usually work together to collaborate. The other idea is to produce pieces of tangible art by the end of the 48 hours. I don’t want to give too much direction, I want to allow it to take its own shape. But it’s not about solving real world problems, it’s more about thinking of possibilities on the artistic side,” says Thomas, who has studied painting and new media at the Berlin University of Arts before moving on to media arts.
He has presented at the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Hong Kong, Vorspiel / transmediale and CTM and Retune festival in Berlin. He was involved in projects at Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin and Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, Spain. His project at ISEA involved The Berlin TV Tower, the unofficial symbol of Berlin’s non-existent skyline, broadcasting the message “Hi” in morse code over the three sides of the ICC Tower in Hong Kong. After this, a number of nodes appeared, establishing a network and developing a momentum of movement, exchange, and interconnection.
As a media artist, Thomas also seeks to explore satellite-inspired interactive objects that combine light, sound, sensors, projections and augmented reality. This will be another major part of his project, called ‘Place in Orbit’.
“I am using this material for my own artistic development to build interactive installations. I want to build the first one in Bengaluru. The idea is to make more of these in the next two years so it grows into a bigger setting with different interactive objects that are inspired by satellites and communicate with each other and the visitor,” he explains.
“I am just about to begin my artistic research for the project. I am still open to discoveries but I am seeking to explore specific shapes, colours and materials that are used in space technology, which incorporates basic and ancient geometric shapes in the most advanced forms of science, which is only over a century old,” he explains.
“I also have other questions on the idea of space itself, what it means, especially in the context of so many different kinds of existing spaces from the physical space to the virtual space, outer space, gallery space and urban space. It is interesting to explore where I am located in these spaces as well to see how the discoveries in outer space have changed mankind’s perspective. This change has permeated into the arts as well, we have artists sending satellites into outer space. There is so much to discover in this field.” At the same time, he is aware of the logistical challenges of developing and setting up such an installation in such a short time frame.
“For now, I might even concentrate just on the physical parts because that is more obvious. But I hope to combine it with augmented reality because I think it can add layers to the perception. And augmented reality is more connected to the present space.”
His installation, he says, would most likely be centered around the India’s historic launch of over 100 satellites into outer space. Thomas is planning to to build over 100 such satellite-inspired objects that can be centrally controlled. For his research, he plans to visit the Indian space science facilities located around the city, studying materials, shapes, and processes used in the production and development of space satellites. He also plans to interview experts from the Indian space industry.
Thomas, who is also the cofounder of Lacuna Lab, an artist-run association, collaborative community, working at the intersection of arts, science, and technology, believes there is a lot of potential in this segment.
For details on SPARTH, visit www.sparth.org . Registrations are open at ti.to/sparth/1stsparth/.
