2025

NL Moonshots ’24, was a collective initiative by the European Space Agency(ESA), the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), and the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), presented in a form of an open call inviting diverse perspectives on space exploration. In commercial, industrial, and scientific fields, the incorporation of artistic research has facilitated alternative approaches to research paradigms and yielded discoveries. Artistic methodologies have proven to foster the transformation and representation of concepts that lie beyond the confines of what traditional research can provide. Facilitating the notion of specialising in diversity, we wish to provide access to existing artistic research and scientific output to both parties, offering a platform for them to cross their disciplinary boundaries and share their expertise with each other; the website we are developing already has a dedicated archive to such existing research. This approach also serves as a contact point for non-specialists outside of the field, democratising the knowledge being developed within this context. Creative and artistic methodologies, language, and perspective can dissolve this barrier for engagement but, more importantly, recontextualise what space exploration means. It can broaden how we explore, why we explore, and even what we explore by offering new lenses through which to view the field and an alternative methodology to embody, practice, and experience these ideas.

 

This project proposed re-imagining space research through the lens of transdisciplinarity driven by the integration and application of artistic methodologies alongside the existing space research programmes. Further facilitating interface of diverse spheres of knowledges from both local and global cultures, in turn expanding the way we define, interpret, and perceive cosmology and space research at large. We are proposing artistic methodologies beyond the common current practice of science communication, and encourage a space of even collaboration between space as well as artistic researchers. From this, an inclusive space culture can develop that exists independently among these existing local and global histories, recognising ‘science’ and ‘art’ as cultures in their own right but also their convergence as a transdisciplinary paradigm.

​

Three outouts were developed as a results of this project:

 

Manifesto - Providing critical reflection on the existing methodologies and technologies employed

in space research, while identifying the factors that contribute to its limitation to the STEM sector. This textual output composed of an analysis of ESA policies and their impact on the progression of (space) culture as well as (monodisciplinary) language.

​

Hyperplatform:  A platform transgressing digital, national, and disciplinary boundaries. It consist of a node diagram (prototype)  demonstrate interconnectedness of subjects and visualise proximity and relationships between disciplines. 

​

Interactive installation: An immersive way to experience the manifesto, the archive, and the node diagram, allowing people to interact with the digital work in a physical space.