Public Space

2023

Public space intervention of Doane Observatory, Chicagos largest public telescope, using video mapping,  projectors and media players. 

Public Space is a public space intervention that highlights the current status of the moon an other celestial bodies as “not being subject of appropiation to national appropiation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”, according to the Outer Space Treaty.  Using text from space law treaties, that declare celestial as belonging to humanity, the work brings questions on property of celestial bodies as the race for space colonization peaks. 

Language an text is explored in its semantic layers as well as in its materiality. The composition of text an animation treats words as a fluctuating force that acts as a material source of light that can be experience as an object that forms  geometries and lines that interact with the facade of the Doane Observatory.  As phrases taken from space law appear, they start forming different shapes that in cases resemble the Chicago skyline that can be seen from the site. 

The work seeks to question how gaze of the cosmos and celestial bodies, for long assosiated with the unknown, the poetic, the unconcious an the sublime will change as it becomes an extention of our own skyline. 

Situating space as as public space, opens questions on the mechanics of colonization that relies on investment, private property and a return of investment in order to get funding for exploration. Currently, many companies seeking to spark space economy are challenging the current Outer Space Treaty, in order to enhable private property on the moon. 

The public space intervention expands in its self our notion of what constitutes public space, and extends the question to the new frontier of human civilization.