Mihoko Ogkai’s ongoing series Milky Ways explores the ideas of life, death and rebirth. The dead or dying human life forms are constructed with fibre-reinforced plastic and embedded LED lights that project star-like fields of light on the surrounding gallery walls. Tiny holes dot the figures; the light emitted transforms these tortured, decaying bodies into incredible portraits of the night sky.
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April 5, 2013 - See more posts by Alana
Illustrator Jay Fleck‘s work is full of childhood ambition: his work illustrates fantasies born while staring at the ceiling on top of bunk bed during summer camp. On a large scale, his work depicts giraffes, whales, rocket ships and other figments of a healthy childhood imagination. The only way I know describe is work is that he pieces are fun–some are clever and others are more cheeky, too. All are full of childish fun pared with aspiration and daydreams.
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March 29, 2013 - See more posts by Alana
During stressful launches, NASA’s jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control eats handfuls of peanuts for good luck. Peanuts have been a part of space exploration for a long time. A dedicated reader passed along the above Peanuts Snoopy astronaut action figure: Snoopy was the NASA Manned Flight Awareness Program mascot (with the blessing of Peanuts creator Charles Schultz) and spoke out for flight safety. NASA even awards a “Silver Snoopy Award” to employees and contractors for outstanding human flight safety achievements.
Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan of Apollo X named their Lunar Module (LM) Snoopy. The Command Service Module was named Charlie Brown.
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March 22, 2013 - See more posts by Alana
Like many countries, Iceland does not have a space program, although, Iceland has been intimately involved in space exploration by proxy. In 1965 and 1967 in preparation for latter Apollo Missions, NASA sent astronauts to the formally green areas of Iceland that are now barren. The US Space Program chose to send their space farers to areas on earth that resembled the surface of the moon so our future moonwalkers could practice trotting around on a similar environment. Nine of the twelve men that have danced on the lunar surface first danced upon the surface of Iceland.
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March 15, 2013 - See more posts by Alana
Who will be on the forefront of the next stage of space exploration? You might remember some real life individuals that have taken upon themselves to brave the final frontier: Final Frontier Design & PSU Professor Cameron Smith.
Jan Jinda rendered a cheeky portrait of a textbook geek that created his own suit out of found items. While our real life space suit entrepreneurs have it more together than Jinda’s Poindexter, his charm is rendered is such amazing detail. I am quite fond of the water detail of the goldfish stripped of his helmet-like home. The space books, posters & paraphernalia nicely round out the composition. He’s got the confidence of someone to “be next.”
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March 8, 2013 - See more posts by Alana