Whitney Dail spends most of her time daydreaming about space, especially anything sixties Space Age. She rides her bike almost every day, loves researching and staying informed about current issues in contemporary art, enjoys watching road-cycling races (grand tours), and has a vast knowledge of British subcultures. Whitney is currently seeking her masters in Arts Administration at SCAD.
NASA’s 2011 Budget: Obama Kills Human Space Exploration
It is a new era for space exploration. Today, NASA unveiled a new budget plan for the 2011 fiscal year. If you followed the Augustine Committee this past summer, you know of the great space debate. As of today, the NASA we all know and love is on the brink of a pivotal transition to develop over the next five years. The 2011 budget focuses on discovering new technologies and updating the current means of exploration.
In order to explore new frontiers, we are launching a vigorous new technology development and test program that will pursue game-changing technology development that can take us further and faster and more affordably into space. —from NASA’s 2011 Budget Overview
Sounds OK, right? But the new plan restricts us to low orbit and replaces astronauts with robots. How can you expect to inspire and renew the public’s interest in exploring our solar system with a focus on robotic probes? It is invariably apparent that “new” programs will replace the old when it comes to President Obama’s initiatives—this applies to more than just NASA.
In addition to the removal of human spaceflight, Obama proposes to globalize NASA’s efforts while partnering with other governments worldwide and commercializing space technology. Although it was inevitable, opening space technology up to the private sector for the purpose of lower costs is a mistake. Why replace NASA’s expertise and history of problem solving spaceflight? Furthermore, human spaceflight will no longer be an American legacy. Countries like China, Japan, India and even Iran will grab the torch. Also, how does this affect the local economies nationwide that are already involved in NASA production?
In place of the Moon mission, Mr. Obama’s vision offers, at least initially, nothing in terms of human exploration of the solar system. What the administration calls a “bold new initiative” does not spell out a next destination or timetable for getting there.
I strongly believe that NASA is now more unfocused than ever. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes.
Listen to the entire teleconference here and read the projected budget changes here. What do you think?
Sarah Thornton speculates the potential increase or decrease of Picasso’s The Actor since the accident. Originally broadcast on January 28th’s Morning Edition of NPR.
Since 1952 “The Actor,” a rare Rose Period Picasso, has hung prominently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with other examples of early paintings by this Spanish master. But on Monday it could be found in a new, temporary home, the Met’s conservation laboratory, where experts there are trying to determine the best course of action for this 105-year-old painting’s brand-new feature: an irregular, six-inch tear running vertically along the lower right-hand corner.
Five days ago, a clumsy student fell into a Picasso painting. Ouch. The painting was immediately removed and taken to the MET’s conservators to assess the damage. The painting is crucial and marks a move from Picasso’s blue period into his rose period. It is also formidably large at 4 feet by 6 feet. Luckily, the damage is reparable. It should only take a few weeks to repair, but the pressure is on; the painting is scheduled to display in an April exhibition.
What a horrible accident! This scenario is always in the back of my mind when visiting galleries and museums. My track record for mishaps is long, but fortunately, I haven’t experienced this large of a debacle. On the bright side, I can only imagine the excitement of a lucky conservationist that has the opportunity to problem solve the tear.
I just watched Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which is one of three screenplays written by Roger Ebert. What a totally bizarre and non-sequitur film. The dialogue is pretty memorable (“You’re a moonchild,” and in response, “You’re a bitch.”). The cuts between scenes were jagged and quick, which made it even more absurd. All in all, the soundtrack completed the film. Which, by the way, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. What a fun movie! I went into without expectations and found it completely entertaining.
And the movie as a whole? I think of it as an essay on our generic expectations. It’s an anthology of stock situations, characters, dialogue, cliches and stereotypes, set to music and manipulated to work as exposition and satire at the same time; it’s cause and effect, a wind-up machine to generate emotions, pure movie without message. The strange thing about the movie is that it continues to play successfully to completely different audiences for different reasons. When Meyer and I were hired a few years later to work on an ill-fated Sex Pistols movie called “Who Killed Bambi?” we were both a little nonplussed, I think, to hear Johnny Rotten explain that he liked “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” because it was so true to life.
“ENDLESS (ARIANNE)” - 2002 (EXPLORER), (LUNAORBITER), (VOYAGER) LAMBDA PRINT ON ALUMINUM. 60 X 60 CM A series of images of well-known rockets configured into imaginary structures. These “remixed” forms convert their represented movement into a non functional rotation the implications of which raise questions as to the rockets’ real nature, the meaning of their mission, and the confidence people have in technology. (via Artists’s Website)
We were asked to come up with a list of our values in my Raising Funds for Arts Organizations class this week. So here’s a list of some things that are priceless, yet I cherish and measure on a daily basis. What do you value?
IMAGINATION: the ability to look beyond your surroundings and find solutions through perception and synthesis of ideas.
SENSIBILITY: total awareness of the world around you through absorption.
PASSION: absolute intensity and emotional drive for something you believe in.
CHARM: cultural grace in social settings.
EXPLORATION: the search and discovery of deeper understanding and new ideas.
PRIVILEGE: the complete responsibility and careful consideration of choices.
NOSTALGIA: a love and look back on golden times of futures past and histories repeated.
"The connoisseur of Camp has found more ingenious pleasures. Not in Latin poetry and rare wines and velvet jackets, but in the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses. Mere use does not defile the objects of his pleasure, since he learns to possess them in a rare way. Camp — Dandyism in the age of mass culture — makes no distinction between the unique object and the mass-produced object. Camp taste transcends the nausea of the replica."
