Structural transformations in space associated with the NewSpace phenomenon are also accompanied by a reconfiguration of relations and actors involved in the meaning-making processes. The paper discusses hybrid spaces of meaning-making located between the major space institutions and creatives.
Long abstract:
Recent structural transformations in space, associated with the NewSpace phenomenon and characterized by the decentralization, privatization and commodification of space, are also accompanied by a reconfiguration of the relations and actors involved in the meaning-making processes. While NASA has a long history of cooperation with creatives, it is rather new that the Ariane Group, the main European rocket developer, is opening its doors to fashion designers and musicians, and that the main international professional space association, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), agrees to create a new committee called the "IAF Technical Activities Committee for Cultural Utilization of Space" (ITACCUS). Building on my fieldwork at the 2022 IAF Congress in Paris and at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz in 2022 and 2023, my paper highlights the contemporary territory of meaning-making located between the major space institutions (ESA, NASA), the space industry, and the creative communities, and discusses the emerging scenes of artistic communications about space. I focus on how various artistic interventions and experiments contribute to the production of meanings about space, human relations with space and space technologies. Building on McKenzie's (2019) argument that contemporary forms of capitalism are based less on the ownership of the means of production than on the ownership of the means of value creation, my analysis will focuses on the different kinds of value that emerge from the collaboration and "neighborhood" of science, art, and technology.