The Verge: There was no shortage of media from Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launch this week. A computer-rendered animation prepared us all for the spectacle, set to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” as a kind of galactic music video. Everything was live-streamed as it happened. Then afterward, the viral video clip of the two booster rockets landing in tandem after the successful launch was certainly impressive, even if the third booster missed its mark. But the real iconic image from the launch, the one most likely to stand the test of time, is of the cherry-red Tesla Roadster that Musk embedded in the capsule of the payload rocket. A gleaming convertible floating through (actual, real) space, its wheels not spinning at all, an astronaut-suited mannequin posed, unperturbed, with its arm hanging out the side. The Earth eventually looms in the background, incomprehensibly large, seen through the windshield.
3 comments:
I simply don’t agree with the journalist of this article. I really dislike the concept of being able to break down art into a grade. Art is up to each individual’s own interpretation of the piece, it cannot be considered good or bad. You cannot compare one art piece to another. I also found this article confusing because the journalist seems to be in favor that Elon Musk’s idea is very much artwork and yet at the end of the article the journalist decides not only is it not art but it is bad art. I think that with the amount of thought and placement Elon Musk must’ve put into this project, even if it was considered a joke, I believe it carries a lot of thoughtful artistic elements. From me as a viewer of this piece, I see it as art and I enjoy elements of the photographs I have seen.
I think that establishing whether or not something is art has to do with the mindset behind its creation. The article talks about Marcel Duchamp and his modernist, random objects. His artwork, although seeming strange and random, has a title "meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal”. He has a purpose to his artwork. Azuma Makoto sent his rigs with plant to space as part of a series looking at the placement of plant in places other than the earth. He wanted to examine the meaning of his sculptures if it was his arranging flowers for the air or space in comparison for arranging for an earth based environment. There is meaning and intention with art, whether it is simple and random like Duchamp or deep and philosophical like Makoto. Simply based on the other articles I've read about this space launch, I am not inclined to believe that there was a purposeful meaning behind this "Starman" and his expensive vessel besides to make a statement and a homage to science fiction fans, but if Musk's intentions had a more proactive mindset behind the image he was creating, perhaps I would be inclined to change my mind. I agree with Lily about the author's writing. It is weirdly misleading and the grading is unnecessary. Art is more of a feeling that a quantifiable quality.
Elon Musk has been making tongue in cheek jokes, referencing funny pop culture tropes, and generally going against the grain o fthe "serious industry" since the early beginnings of SpaceX, and I think it is one of the contributing factors to his popularity and his near-revered status in tech circles. He seems to be a guy who not only has a good business sense, but a good sense of humor as well. A great example came very recently when he established his company based on underground drilling, called "The Boring Company." And the way he is starting to fund this company? By selling $500 "Boring Company" flamethrowers online, which were snatched up in a very quick jiffy, if you really want to know. The Barges that the falcon boosters land back on are named after spaceships in The Culture Series, and this time he sent up his own car with a mannekin in it, the dashboard displaying the words "Don't Panic". The man is a walking meme, and If that's not art, I don't know what is.
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