Having as inspiration the survival kits used in Apollo and Mercury space missions, the artist book Noah’s Ark – An Improbable Space Survival Kit advances a set of conceptual and artistic tools to be used in a crisis situation – our present times – and to imagine the future.
The accelerated rhythm of global climate change, vanishing bio resources and the effects of the Anthropocene pose the urgency of survival in stronger and stronger terms. What are the possible scenarios to be followed? Nowadays, leaving the Earth and colonising outer space is gradually becoming a potential alternative reality. The unknown cosmos is gradually turned into a world to be seen, grasped, explored and inhabited.
The Artemis Moon Mission is scheduled for 2024. Worlds, potentially hosting life or capable of sustaining it, are being envisioned and searched for; exoplanets are discovered; self-sustainable space habitats are imagined. Contemporary Noah’s Arks are designed, human life prolongation is sought for, and Military Space Commands are created. Ethical questions abound regarding the attempt to colonise and inhabit space, as well as regarding human responsibility toward outer space, which starts to be marked by an Anthropocene stage. The actively sought for planetary migration toward space simultaneously contains the promise of the future as well as the germs of contamination and destruction of the worlds it encounters. The possibility of failure stands strong.
Is outer space a viable scenario for life prolongation and survival? If so, does it breed life as we know it, or do we witness an ontological shift in what life means?
This project is supported by Konstnärsnämnden, The Swedish Art Grants Committee.
Artistic Concept: Corina Ilea and Ștefan Constantinescu
Text contributions by: Corin Braga, Cătălina Curceanu, M RX Dentith, Simon Harel, Laura T. Ilea, Maria Lantz, Philip Leonard, Ilinca Micu, Tudor Mihăescu, Dumitru Prunariu, Alexandru Solomon.
Design: Radu Manelici
Illustration: Mihai Coliban
Translation: Emmet Cooke, Philip Ó Ceallaigh, Erik Bordeleau