Curiosity

When the Mars rover landed a few years back I wished there was a way to be able to get control of the main mast camera and make some Mars-based art. While they never let me drive the thing, everyone does have access to the images NASA and JPL makes available it does make along its lonely journey.

The idea of using scientific imagery as a basis for art making is't a new one, and there have been a few people doing work with NASA sources imagery for a while. It was the basis for my Sol Invictus series, as well as the Remote Sensing work. These new windows into other worlds allows artists take their photographic and artistic vision to otherwise impossible places—interplanetary art making.

With this new series working with the Martian imagery, it takes the idea of photographic exploration, and how in being the first visual records of places and things automatically makes the photographs beautiful and precious—similar to the first photographs of the American frontier and 19th century colonial photographs of the near and far east. The randomness of the perspective of the rover in otherwise "unphotographic" light turns random arrangements of rocks in desolate landscapes into beautiful compositions of light and form.