Category Archives: Installation Art

A Cinematic Love Letter to Space Exploration "The Sky is Calling Us"

From copywriter Nickolaus Sugai and interaction designer Lauren Geschke comes this poignant video poetry, a kind of love letter to NASA posing a difficult question that we as a culture and a society must answer.

We once dreamt of open sails 
and open seas
We once dreamt of new frontiers 
and new lands
Are we still a brave people?
___
Somewhere along the way 
we forgot to look up
we forgot to wonder
we forgot to imagine
we forgot to dream.
When history writes about us
what will they say?
Will they say they watched the masses huddle idly 
and weak voices whispering apathy?
Or will they say that we turned the 
question marks that loom over this 
generation into declarative periods?
A statement that shouts, “We will not
choose to sit idly while the cosmos moves on!”
The sky is indifferent. For I have never seen it cry.
It will not wait for us, so we must go to it.
Because if we ignore the cause of the sky,
who then will draw the maps of the universe? 

Caltech Crafts Gingerbread Mars Rover

via LAWEEKLY: “Crafted by Kevin Isacsson, head chef of the Athaneum, the Pasadena university’s private dining club, the rover features pinwheel cookie wheels connected with black licorice, sugared Lego “gears” and gumdrop and M&M “buttons.”

In a nod to the multi-million-dollar expense of the original craft, the top is scattered with chocolate gold coins. A shades-wearing Santa sits aloft amid candy canes and lollipops. Hanging out on the Martian surface, which is made up of real rocks and rock crystal sugar dusted with cinnamon and brown sugar, are Yoda, Darth Vader, Buzz Lightyear and a three-eyed red Martian.

Caltech manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the rover that is currently exploring the Red Planet. JPL lent Isacsson a model of Curiosity to help him craft the cake version, which took about 10 days. Isacsson has created a gingerbread structure each holiday season for the last eight years he’s been at Caltech, but this was his first “scientific” mission.”