Aerospace Materials Studies, Series 1
Now live on the website.
This still life photographic project looks at the intersection between science technologies and fiction in the testing and documentation of aerospace materials. Drifting between fact and illusion, the work is heavily influenced by recent on-line broadcasts of SpaceX launches and testing, Mars Curiosity Rover, the Rosetta Probe and the current orbiting of Jupiter with the Juno satellite. Not since the NASA Space Shuttle has there been such a vivid image of real space travel. This merging of fact and fiction resonates with the visual language 20th century science fiction in film, animation and literature.
The first series of images in this project look at the some of the core materials used in the aerospace industries. Key defining characteristics are strength, weight, flexibility, temperature resistance, and financial cost, with each playing a part in how they are used. The gradual distillation of these technologies has allowed them to be used in applications far beyond their first intended use and indeed they have become more readily available to the end consumer. With this movement there have been more and more groups of people able to develop their own space bound rockets. An evolution of this is broader groups able to combine resources and develop rockets for the growing micro-satellite markets.