Noah’s Ark - An Improbable Space Survival Kit
Stefan Constantinescu Corina Ilea
Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing, ISBN 9789198533569,
Pb, 280 pgs, 22 x 26cm
Acqn. 31937
In Stock
£59.00
Pb, 280 pgs, 22 x 26cm
Acqn. 31937
In Stock
£59.00
Having survival kits used in Apollo and Mercury space missions as inspiration, the
artist book Noah's Ark - An Improbable Space Survival Kit advances a set of
conceptual and artistic tools to be used in a crisis situation - our present times -
and to imagine the future.
The accelerated rhythm of global climate change, vanishing bio resources and the
effects of the Anthropocene pose the urgency of survival in stronger and stronger
terms. What are the possible scenarios to be followed? Nowadays, leaving the Earth
and colonising outer space is gradually becoming a potential alternative reality. The
unknown cosmos is gradually turned into a world to be seen, grasped, explored and
inhabited.
The Artemis Moon Mission is scheduled for 2024. Worlds, potentially hosting life or
capable of sustaining it, are being envisioned and searched for; exoplanets are
discovered; self-sustainable space habitats are imagined. Contemporary Noah's Arks
are designed, human life prolongation is sought for, and Military Space Commands
are created. Ethical questions abound regarding the attempt to colonise and inhabit
space, as well as regarding human responsibility toward outer space, which starts to
be marked by an Anthropocene stage. The actively sought for planetary migration
toward space simultaneously contains the promise of the future as well as the germs
of contamination and destruction of the worlds it encounters.
Is outer space a viable scenario for life prolongation and survival? If so, does it
breed life as we know it, or do we witness an ontological shift in what life means?

