Space Assembly: The Cultural Negotiation of Space Science

 Dr Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen is a Lecturer in Legal Practice at Bournemouth University. She has a multidisciplinary background which traverses the Law, Arts, Humanities and Sciences, and has published several anthology chapters on her research into the art-documentary visualisation of state-corporate-military forms of violence/power. Nicolette also research processes of datafication and financialisation (the ‘Data-Finance Nexus’), and its socially abstract or in/visible conditions of possibility. She is currently working on a monograph for Routledge entitled The Strategic Visualisation of Abstract Violence. She is also directing a Bournemouth University-funded film - Dark Matter|s -  in collaboration with astroparticle physicists conducting experiments in science laboratories in mines deep underground.

Anne-Sofie Belling is a designer-researcher, technologist and co-founder of the Bio-Futures for Transplanetary Habitats research group. With a research background in both speculative design, interaction design and creative technology, she brings a perspective to her work that seamlessly brings together art, technoscience and design to create artifacts that critically explore visions of the future. Currently she is working on her doctorate degree at Newcastle University and the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment where she critically examines the current and potential interactions between design, technology and biology of transplanetary imaginaries through speculative design research. Her work and research has been presented and exhibited internationally at several venues most recently at ZKM | Karlsruhe as part of their “Driving the Human” exhibition.

Monika Brandic Lipinska, a researcher with a background in architecture and space studies, sees tremendous potential in biological solutions for developing our future on Earth and in space. She is discovering how merging architectural design with engineering, applications of biomaterials and biotechnologies, provides new ways to manage construction, growth, repair, replication and energy savings. Through the integration of low technology readiness level construction systems and in-situ resource utilisation, tightly intertwined with biological processes, her work focuses on developing human-oriented and livable habitats in space and extreme environments. She co-leads the Bio-Futures for Transplanetary Habitats research platform at Newcastle University where she is a PhD candidate.

Annie Carpenter is a current PhD student working within the CNoS group. Her work explores the disruption of artistic and scientific labour, drawing on amateur science experiments, hobbyist engineering projects and futile human endeavour, usually in the form of excursions and sculpture-demonstrations. She is Co-Director of ‘para-lab’, an organisation experimenting with the ‘how’ of collaboration between artists and scientists, running in parallel to academic institutions.

Fiona Crisp is Professor of Contemporary Art at Northumbria University, where she co-leads the CNoS research group. Her practice resides at the intersection of photography, sculpture and architecture and for the past two decades she has been collaborating with sites, institutions and individuals in the field of fundamental science. Her Leverhulme Fellowship Material Sight was based at three world-leading research facilities, including Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, housed inside a mountain in central Italy. Material Sight culminated in two major exhibitions and a book publication, edited with Nicola Triscott, The Live Creature and Ethereal Things: Physics in Culture - a collection of texts, images and conversations that present fundamental physics and the physics of the universe as human activities and cultural endeavours.

Marcos Díaz is an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Chile. He received his Electrical Engineering degree in 2001 from the University of Chile and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 2004 and 2009, respectively, from Boston University, USA. His research interests are related to the study and development of instruments, systems, and techniques for space-based scientific research. He previously worked as a research assistant at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, MIT Haystack Observatory, and Boston University's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is in charge of the Space and Planetary Exploration Laboratory, a multidisciplinary laboratory where the university's nanosatellite-based space program is being developed. 

Dr Paul Dolan (Arts, Northumbria University) and Dr Pete Howson (Geography & Environmental Science, Northumbria University) have worked together since 2021 researching the energy output of data centres in relation to the digital economy and cryptocurrencies (Howson), and in relation to the mass production of computer-generated images for the entertainment and AI industries (Dolan). They are currently researching the impact of NewSpace industries and the privatisation of space travel in relation to environment, indigenous communities and sociotechnical imaginaries. 

Luis Guzmán holds degrees in Visual Arts and Bioethics from the University of Chile and an MFA in Art, Space & Nature from the University of Edinburgh. Now a Ph.D. Candidate at Northumbria University, he focuses on space immersive technologies to extend human sensory capabilities. His ground-breaking work, showcased at venues like MoMA and the London Design Fair, melds art and science. Notably, he is the first bioartist to have a project on the International Space Station (ISS) and contributed to microbiology research in space through the PlantSat Satellite. He's also a member of SPEL at Universidad de Chile.

Dr Laura Harrington is an artist and researcher who makes work that considers the complex relations between humans and landscapes, often through experimental fieldwork, cross-disciplinary research and collaborative working. Her practice operates between the interdisciplinary boundaries of art and environmental sciences and for the past decade she has been collaborating with sites, individuals, and institutions in the field of geomorphology and ecology. Using a variety of methods and media, including filmmaking, installation, drawing, fieldwork and listening, Laura’s practice centres on ‘upstream consciousness’, a framework that connects rivers, peatlands and other upland and mountain ecologies to global currents. Process and interaction are also central to her practice, with research both physically and conceptually embedded in, and significantly informed by, her direct experience with specific landscapes. Her AHRC funded practice-based PhD upstream consciousness: exploring artists’ fieldwork through geomorphing, spiralling and co-productive ecologies at Northumbria University was in interested in the capacity of artistic methods to support new forms of ecological thinking.  

Dr Luke Hughes is Assistant Professor in Aerospace Physiology & Rehabilitation within the Aerospace Medicine and Rehabilitation Laboratory at Northumbria University. Funded by the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency, Luke is working on three key projects: 1) investigating the lumbopelvic adaptations to spaceflight in NASA, ESA and JAXA astronauts following long duration spaceflight missions to the ISS; 2) investigating the effectiveness of artificial gravity and novel countermeasures for mitigation of lumbopelvic deconditioning during long duration bedrest; 3) investigating the feasibility of novel exercise countermeasure devices in simulated microgravity. He is also leading a new line of research investigating the efficacy of blood flow restriction exercise as a novel countermeasure to physiological deconditioning during spaceflight, and as a post-flight reconditioning tool.

Dr Kirsty Lindsay is an Aerospace Physiologist and Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist. Kirsty is the clinical lead for the Northumbria Physiotherapy Clinic, which provides physiotherapy placements for NU students and provides high quality outpatient physiotherapy care for staff, students and members of the public.  Kirsty is a member of the Aerospace Medicine and Rehabilitation Laboratory, where her research interests are maintaining astronaut health in flight, injury prevention during exploration missions and post-flight rehabilitation. Here on Earth, Kirsty is interested in improving the treatment of pelvic floor muscle dysfunction and treatment of low back pain.

Nahum is an artist and musician focused on challenging our perceptions through unusual perspectives. He produces works that reframe the way we engage with the universe with a wide range of media. In 2011, Nahum founded the KOSMICA Institute, a space organisation with a mission to create a platform for critical, cultural, and poetic discourse about our relationship to the Universe, space activities, and their impact on Earth. The Institute develops initiatives that bridge the arts and humanities, the space sector and the broader society. Nahum's work has been exhibited in countries such as the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, UK, France, Sweden, Russia, Australia, Taiwan, China, Japan and Brazil.

Christopher Newman is Professor of Space Law and Policy at Northumbria University at Newcastle in the United Kingdom. He is active in the teaching and research of space law and has published extensively on the legal and ethical underpinnings of space governance. He is regularly invited to lecture in universities and at specialist conferences on space law and policy across the UK and internationally. He has presented his research on the legal dimensions of discovery of alien life to the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). He has also been invited to be an observer member of the UK delegation to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He was appointed Visiting Professor of Space Law at the Open University working on the legal and ethical dimensions of planetary protection. He is an academic consultant to 3SNorthumbria, a Space Situtational Awareness (SSA) consultancy company based in the North East of England and has made numerous TV and radio appearances in the UK speaking as an expert on space law and policy issues.

Blanca Pujals is an architect, researcher and writer. Her cross-disciplinary practice uses spatial research and critical analysis to engage with questions around geographies of power on bodies and territories, and geopolitical configurations of contemporary techno-scientific infrastructures.  She is currently developing her practice-led PhD in Art&Science at the BxNU Institute about the geopolitics and spatial articulations of Particle Physics, looking at its laboratories and experiments - more specifically neutrino detectors, Antarctic scientific bases and the particle collider CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) - which she calls sensing infrastructures, as they amplify not only material but also political interactions through transnational treaties.

Jonathan Rae is a Professor of Space Plasma Physics at Northumbria University. He is an expert in the plasma physics of space phenomena across the solar system, especially the large-scale electromagnetic oscillations found in Earth’s magnetic field, the solar corona, and at the gas giants.  He specialises in instrumentation for observing our space environment, from ground-based cameras and magnetometers to space-based detectors that sample the plasma directly.  He leads the Space Inter-Disciplinary Research Theme here at Northumbria University and is a member of the Space Science Advisory Council for the European Space Agency.

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Dean of the Social Sciences and Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race and numerous other books on science and religion, the history and philosophy of cosmology, and the long, unconscious legacy of Christian thought in the secular West. She is also co-PI of “Sacred Space: Religion and Space Exploration” at Arizona State University’s Interplanetary Initiative.

Dr Pierangelo Marco Scravaglieri holds a PhD in Experimental Architecture from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Throughout his doctorate, he designed experimental 'living' buildings for the European-funded Living Architecture (LIAR) project. In 2022, he was awarded a joint scholarship by the European Space Agency and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana to attend the Space Studies Program. Pierangelo’s work questions architecture’s relationship with liquids beyond their application in utilities and water features through the use of emerging technologies such as bioreactors and other ‘wet systems’. Here, he will introduce his ongoing research project, Liquid Architecture: Microgravity Design and Research for ‘Spaceship Earth’.

Professor Tom Stallard joined Northumbria University in September 2022. His research focus is understanding the upper atmospheres of giant planets and their interactions with the surrounding magnetosphere, using a combination of telescope and spacecraft observations, for which work Tom won the 2019 Royal Astronomical Society Chapman Medal. Most recently, he was awarded 24 hours of James Web Space Telescope time to observe Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. Tom supports the public understanding of science, having hosted three RAS live from the telescope events , and was awarded the Mauna Kea observatories honorary title of 'Hoku Kolea' for 'outstanding commitment to the volunteer program’. He also supports early career researchers, having held the faculty level Director of Post-graduate of Research at the University of Leicester, and recently having taken up the role of faculty representative on the Northumbria University committee for Research Culture

Nicola Triscott  PhD is a curator, researcher and writer, specializing in the intersections between art, science, technology and society. Since 2019, Nicola has been Director/CEO of FACT, the Centre for Film, Art and Creative Technology, in Liverpool, UK. Previously, Nicola was the founding Director/CEO of Arts Catalyst (1994 to 2019). Nicola curates, lectures and publishes internationally, and has edited books on art and technology in the Arctic, art and space, physics in culture, and ecological art. She was the founding chair of the International Astronautical Federation’s Committee on Cultural Utilization of Space, and cultural consultant to the European Space Agency from 2005-8. She has addressed the United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. From 2000, she organized (and participated in) several art and science parabolic ‘zero gravity’ flights with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Russia.

Clare Watt is a Professor of Space Plasma Physics at Northumbria University. Her research blends astronomy of the solar system, plasma physics and meteorology into investigations of space weather – the name for natural electromagnetic hazards that can affect satellites, power systems and communications here at Earth. She specialises in numerical methods, simulations and statistical data analyses. She is a member of a number of advisory boards for the UKSA and ESA, and is Vice-President of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Space Assembly is a collaboration between the Cultural Negotiation of Science research group and the Space Interdisciplinary Research Theme (IDRT) and is supported by Northumbria University.