Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

Jim Plaxco on stage with the Music Institute of Chicago Orchestra

I had what for me was a rather singular experience Saturday September 8. That experience was participating in a classical music concert. My role was to provide narration for a piece of music titled Blast Off! and to speak briefly about the planets Jupiter and Mars as a way of introducing the musical pieces Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity and Mars, the Bringer of War - two of the seven planet songs that comprise the orchestral suite The Planets written by Gustav Holst and first performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1918. Why seven planets? Left out of the suite were our own Earth and the not yet discovered Pluto.

In addition to providing narration, I also provided the visuals used as a backdrop for the concert. The visuals consisted of a combination of my own astronomical art and images taken from various NASA web sites.

The concert was a free public event of the Music Institute of Chicago. Billed as a free concert for kids, the program opened with a musical instrument petting zoo which gave children the opportunity to handle a wide variety of musical instruments. As people filled the hall and awaited the start of the concert, a slide show of my martian imagery was displayed on the main screen. Some of the many pieces shown can be seen on my Mars Art Gallery web site.

The concert opened with a piano recital by 5-year-old MIC pianist Emily Bear whose performance was outstanding. Appropriately, her featured piece was Fly Me to the Moon. What was really impressive was that two of the songs she performed were her own compositions. Emily was then replaced on the stage by the 30 piece MIC Orchestra which launched into the theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The conclusion of this song was my cue to take the stage.

My first task was to provide narration for the song Blast Off!. For those who love trivia, the musical score for Blast Off! was carried into space aboard the STS-92 Discovery mission to the International Space Station. Narrating Blast Off! was a challenge for two reasons. First, I had to take cues from the conductor Benjamin Loeb for when to speak - a totally new experience for me. Second, I had to “act” the words. Fortunately the previous night’s rehearsals really helped with both. I must say that I found twenty lines of dialog spoken on cue with feeling far more difficult to deliver than a two hour class I taught at the Adler Planetarium.

Following the end of Blast Off!, I gave the audience a brief overview of the planet Jupiter and its Galilean moons and introduced Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. Another short lecture about Mars and the importance of exploring the red planet led to the introduction of Mars, the Bringer of War - one of my favorite musical pieces. A number of years ago I had the opportunity to see Emerson, Lake, and Powell (not Palmer) perform their version of this piece in concert - a totally killer interpretation that remains one of my most memorable concert experiences.

For me the entire event was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and the MIC people were a real pleasure to work with. It was also a great piece of community service work by the Music Institute of Chicago. Not only were they providing children with the opportunity to handle instruments and attend a concert, attendees also got to learn a little about space exploration and see some space art.

Ad Astra, Jim

Just Another Moon

The NASA Advanced Planning and Partnership Office at Langley Research Center is sponsoring a space art contest for college students. The theme for this art contest is Life and Work on the Moon. NASA is accepting submissions in three categories: two-dimensional, three-dimensional and digital. I find it interesting that the contest organizers have chosen to distinguish between traditional and digital two-dimensional art. I have sent a letter to the contest contact inquiring about the reason for this distinction. I am guessing that the distinction is a result of the file size limitation imposed on original digital art.

The contest opens in October, accepts submissions up to December 1, with the winners announced in either January or February 2008 - with the web site indicating January but the news release indicating February. The winning art will be displayed online and in NASA facilities and museums around the country. The top cash award is listed as $1,000.00 with additional smaller cash prizes for each of the categories.

For contest details visit The Moon: Back to the Future Contest Page.

Ad Astra, Jim

Dunes of Mars by Jim Plaxco

Did you ever notice how time can just slip away from you? That’s what happened to me this month. So here I sit at 11:30pm on a Friday night working up a posting just so August does not pass without my having said anything.

So what have I been doing? Well following my last post here, I wrote a book review for the National Space Society’s web site which was the featured Non-fiction Book of the Month. The book that I reviewed, Utilization of Space, was a rather arduous read but well worth it. I just finished writing another book review - this time ISScapades: The Crippling of America’s Space Program by Donald A. Beattie. That review should be up on the NSS web site some time in the next several days.

Graphically, my time was split between experimenting with graphics effects using Photoshop, creating a digital painting of a total solar eclipse, and working with both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image files.

The image above, “Dunes of Mars”, is a Mars Global Surveyor Narrow Angle Camera image of dunes near the north pole of Mars. For this image, I spent most of my time experimenting with coloring methods as all MGS NA images are 8 bit grayscales. All work was performed using Adobe Photoshop. In the end I was quite pleased with the colorization I achieved. My next task is to update my Mars Art Gallery for which I have a rather large backlog of MGS and MRO images waiting to be posted.

To close, I would like to quote from science fiction author and visionary Arthur C. Clarke: “The astronomical artist will always be far ahead of the explorer. They can depict scenes that no human eye will ever see, because of their danger, or their remoteness in time and space.” Fortunately Mars no longer falls into this category.

Ad Astra, Jim

Dissecting NGC4414 by Jim Plaxco

While attending the ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Dallas, the organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) announced the creation of their All-Student Space Art Competition. It’s great to see another pro-space organization sponsoring a space art contest, especially one that is geared towards students.

Following is the text of their press release:

Unfortunately the art.seds.org web site is not active as of this writing (June 03) so more information is not yet available. I am looking forward to poring over the artwork that is submitted to the contest.

Ad Astra, Jim