Moon Arts Group
The Moon Arts Group envisions creative ways of establishing a link between the Earth and Moon, advances the presence of human culture in space, and facilitates never before realized opportunities for art and exploration.
In late 2013, Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute will send a rover to the Moon in competition for the Google Lunar X Prize. Legendary roboticist and founder of Astrobotic inc., Red Whittaker, has invited a team of artists to join this expedition.
During this mission, the rover will deploy a suite of artworks on the lunar surface--the Moon Arts Project. A group of international artists, scientists and engineers involved with emerging media, new and ancient technologies as well as hybrid processes will assemble nearly a dozen visionary Moon Art projects for launch.
Moon Marks is a series of drawings on the moon left in the tracks of the rover. One of the first activities that we might carry out on the Moon is a series of drawings to announce our arrival, and reflect on what it means to gaze back at Earth.
In the history of humankind, the desire to make marks, and tell a story through pictorial means, is fundamental. Ancient drawings on cave walls, made by artist over 50 millennia ago, serve as the earliest record of human culture. Just as the immortal boot-prints compacted by the first visitors to the Moon have outlived their makers, this series of lines, deliberately traced in the regolith, may last for many generations long after our civilization has faded away.
One drawing might be that of a large and venerable circle, among the most universal and broadly meaningful geometric figures in nature. On a large-scale, the circle circumscribes a space, implying the foundations of a dwelling, the perimeter of a sundial, or a portrait of Earth – the most prominent object on the lunar horizon. Smaller Moon drawings executed on the surface will be selected from among thousands submitted by children and adults, and narrowed down to the most popular using crowd-sourcing technologies allowing users to vote on their favorites.