Q&A WITH THE DIRECTOR

HOW DID YOUR FASCINATION WITH SPACE START IN THE FIRST PLACE?

It started with my Soyuz Chair project, where I worked with cosmonaut Jean Pierre Haigneré from the European Space Agency (ESA). I have always been fascinated by space, the scale of the universe, and travel.
It drives us to speculate: How are we going to survive it? There are these technical and scientific questions that I love to think about, but there is also the fact that I’ve always been drawn to extreme challenges. I’m completely fascinated with places that are very difficult to access due to geopolitical barriers. Amongst all my projects, producing a project like the International Space Orchestra at NASA has been the most challenging, nerve- wracking but absolutely sublime experience.

TELL US MORE ABOUT DISASTER PLAYGROUND

Disaster Playground is about the design of emergency procedures, nailing down who is in charge, who defines the procedures when things go wrong, and according to which rationale. It’s not like we get bombarded by meteorites all the time – but imagine there is an asteroid landing on the Netherlands – not even a big one – it could damage all of Amsterdam. We have the tools that could deflect it before it comes here, but first we have to change the way we monitor the sky and organise politics to be able to deal with it in time.

WE HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION!

We have to pay attention, and we have to pay to support the Near Earth Object Programme. You don’t get a space agency rolling for free. NASA is the only agency who has been working seriously on the threat of asteroids (European are starting with the Neoshield programme). Why would they pay to protect the Netherlands, for example? There is also an international coalition of scientists and diplomats [United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs], who put a proposal in eight years ago for dealing with asteroids, called the Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response, and only now, did the United Nations address the issue. It takes time. Between 2000 and 2013, an infrasound system catalogued 26 major explosions on Earth. It also became clear that this was not such a speculative threat with the 20m-wide object that landed in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013.

YOUR WEBSITE SAYS THAT DISASTER PLAYGROUND DOCUMENTS THE EDGE OF SPACE FICTION. COULD YOU DESCRIBE THIS FURTHER?

Disaster Playground is a creative platform, with many outcomes: there is a feature film (documentary released in March 2015), an exhibition, an immersive experience, a book, debates… I like to call these mega-projects. Disaster Playground is about the design of emergency procedures, nailing down who is in charge, who defines the procedures when things go wrong, and according to which rationale. There is a chain of command in place indeed that runs from the reception desk at NASA to the monitoring devices (telescopes) and NASA Headquarters , the Whitehouse and finally the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs where the final action plan will be decided (at least on paper).

Space Fiction: Doing the project, we, of course, came across Hollywood’s version of Apocalypse/ Space catastrophe in films such as Armageddon for example. There is an ongoing dialogue inside the feature film and the various project’s outcomes on the role that science_ in our case Scientists_ should fulfill. We are looking at the pop culture as a start and then we engage with the reality of each events, the real people who are the real Bruce Willis_ Thus the term Space Fiction. Disaster Playground aims to get you to engage critically with the human condition in place in the space program, the craft, the real people doing it, their quirkiness, their sometimes imperfect reactions and their successes.

WHAT DOES DISASTER PLAYGROUND MEAN TO YOU?

I am designing ‘extreme experiences’ for the public in order for them to question what the future of space exploration might be, how could they make dark energy in their kitchen sink and other surreal experiences, how can they make it for real? I believe that, by taking an extreme approach (Antonin Artaud talked about ‘the theater of Cruelty’ for that type of radical approach with the public), you really get the public to actively engage with a cause or a research and that is what motivates me with space exploration, I want to see the next woman on Mars or on an asteroid, and without public backing that will not happen.
Disaster Playground is a critical platform that engages the main actors of the project to reflect on their practice and get members of the public to engage with what the craft of space exploration is, who are the people ‘making’ it, and where is this all going?

HOW DO THE UNIQUE COMBINATION OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS (DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, BOOK, EXHIBITIONS) USED IN DISASTER PLAYGROUND WORK TOGETHER TO PRODUCE THE FINAL CREATIVE PLATFORM? WHAT DO EACH OF THESE ELEMENTS BRING INDIVIDUALLY AND AS A GROUP?

Each of them are connecting to various audiences. The Film Audience, the Digital Audience, the academic audience, the scientific audience, the graphic audience, the design audience etc… Each of these audiences are very different and so are their needs. This project is engaging the public at various level with various outcomes and each are tailored for them.

WHAT IS ONE MAJOR DOWNSIDE OF NOT GETTING FUNDING FOR THE SPACE PROGRAM?

There is a loss of institutional knowledge, which is incredibly sad. NASA is already forgetting the craft and the knowledge of generations. Not many people can now do the necessary archival work. Funding comes and goes, and governmental cuts hit the space program very heavily. We haven’t archived all of the successes from the Apollo mission! I went to visit some place in the middle of Texas (the Lunar and Planetary Institute USRA) where they have the flight plans of Apollo 11, 12 etc… They are the only copies in existence. Some have been scanned and available online but a lot of them are lost in these shelves.

IT’S CULTURAL HERITAGE!

Absolutely, but there is no money to support an archiving system.
Someone needs to do a PhD and archive it all… I’m doing a PhD, but not on the archiving! It’s mainly about the International Space Orchestra and Disaster Playground, about how you can implement design of experiences within an institution for its own benefit, and for the benefit of the public. These projects are not about me gaining personal access; they are about sharing the knowledge that I gain. I’m not working for scientists. I’m working for members of the public to access this incredible knowledge in an experiential manner.

YOU ATTENDED THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART AND YOU TEACH THERE AND AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS, BUT YOUR DON’T CALL YOURSELF AN ARTIST, HOW DID YOU START MAKING FILMS?

I came from the art world initially. I started in fine arts and used to paint, but I don’t think I was a very good painter. I decided to go into a more craft-based direction, which began as textile design. My discipline is design. I still think in those terms. I think about materials, about how they fit together. I think about communication and tangibility. I did my first feature film to document the process of a project I assembled in NASA and The SETI Institute: the International Space Orchestra (2013). This is an orchestra made of individuals who works at NASA and the SETI Institute and they reenact the drama of mission control.  The International Space Orchestra (2013) (running time 57 min) tells the story of the  journey I took with the employees of NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute in California, in setting up the International Space Orchestra, and the production of the space opera we made together.

DO YOU SEE BIG DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DESIGN, ART AND FILM?

I wouldn’t say there is a big difference these days. There’s not even a question anymore about the fact that they’re blurring, and I think the blurring of boundaries is actually a really good thing. There are no more pure disciplines. I am happy to exploit this, especially in times of crisis. This is how new disciplines and hybrid disciplines can arise. Ultimately, whatever I do, the aim is to communicate. The experience is for you, the public.

SO WHAT IS A DESIGNER OF EXPERIENCES?

I come from this series of designers called critical designers, speculative designers. My mentor is Anthony Dunne, who taught me while I was at the Royal College of Art for Design Interaction and who has created this whole platform for design for debate. He is really pushing the boundaries of design and reconsidering the element of fiction. Narrative is a big part of what we do, but instead of finding answers we generate questions. For example, how might the future of nanotechnology evolve? How might the future of synthetic biology evolve, and how might the public relate to it? So we try to generate these questions through design practices.
But critical design hasn’t just popped up—it’s informed by radical architects like Archigram, for example, in the ’60s, by Italian Radical Design from the same period. Digging deep within this area of critical design, I came up with my own thing, which is the design of experiences, which for me is critical design with input from the theatrical world and the performative world. I look into improvisation and Commedia dell’Arte and think about how to implement that into design. I’ve been interested in the theory of theater, especially Brecht and Antonin Artaud.

Interview by Elvia Wilk

UnCube Magazine www.uncubemagazine.com