Fallen Astronaut –
Violence, Bodies,
and ‘Art on the Moon’
“The only piece of art on the
moon is a 3″-tall aluminium sculpture titled Fallen Astronaut. It was
created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck and installed by Apollo 15
astronaut David Scott, along with a plaque bearing the names of the 14
astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the service of space exploration
prior to
The art piece in question seems to
raise a number of issues of relevance for this theme: First of all, the
art-work is commemorative in nature, as much American art honouring the
heroic,
violently dead is. Often such art uses the body metonymically in its
representation strategy. Secondly, the role of the astronaut in
‘installing’
the art-work raises interesting issues about the production of art and
agency
vis-à-vis an individual piece. Third, the role of the spectator
or audience for
this work seems particularly problematic – after all the piece is on
the Moon
and has never been revisited, seen or documented since its original
installation, or to be even more precise, may very likely no longer be
intact,
given the extreme temperature spectrum of the environment it was placed
in and
the lack of a protective atmosphere up there. The moon, in other words
seems a
particularly violent milieu for a work of art to be in.
Fourth, taking into consideration
that the piece is not on public display itself and known to us
exclusively
through its mediated forms, to wit, a photo
kept in NASA’s archives and reproduced
in various ways on web sites and in other mass media, and a replica of
the
sculpture found at the Space Museum in Houston, we are forced to
reflect on
wherein the piece really consists: Hoeydonck’s preparation of the
figurine and
plaque (not documented), the original gesture of installation performed
by
Scott when he dropped the figurine into the moon dust in 1971 (not
preserved in
images), the act of documenting the piece with a camera, performed by
him immediately
after, or the act of publicising the performance which the astronauts
carried
out at their press conference after returning to Earth – or all of the
above.
Fifth, the apparently simple homage to
heroism embedded in the installation seems to be problematized by the
peculiar
contract between Van Hoeydonck and the Apollo 15 crew not to make money
off the
event, the piece or replicas thereof – and not least the fact that this
contract was broken by Van Hoeydonck in 1972 when he sold 950 signed
replicas
of the piece at 750$ a pop (against NASAs wishes, since NASA
religiously
guarded the non-commercialization of space for fear the Russians would
use any American
attempts at monetary gains off space against them in the Cold War
propaganda effort)
As a nice twist in that side plot the Apollo 15 crew were severely
reprimanded
for selling stamped envelopes that they had brought with them to the
moon
without the prior knowledge of and approval by NASA…
Finally,
the fact that the names on
the memorial plaque are those of both American astronauts and Russian
cosmonauts points to a surprisingly political gesture on the part of
the Apollo
15 crew: in the midst of the Cold War space race this reminder of the
shared
respect for the profession of space traveller and fellow soldier harks
back to traditions
from other wars where soldiers from the warring sides found a common
ground and
respect, before proceeding again to attempt to slaughter one another.
Thus rather
than a gesture of détente the inclusion of Russian names in an
American
memorial is a nostalgic gesture backward to ‘good’ wars of the past
where enemies
were also fellow human beings – an innocence the loss of which was
marked by WW
II (Holocaust and Hiroshima) and proved gone for good by the horrors of
Vietnam.
