[artinfo] from Sputnik Satellite to Explorer Art

[franck ancel]

Press release
Paris, 23 September 2007.

On 4 October 2007, Franck Ancel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of 
the first launch of an artificial satellite,
"1957-2007: from Sputnik Satellite to Explorer Art"
a creation that will be broadcast exclusively over the Internet between 
7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Paris time.

While this international year of the Sputnik - one of this year's 
national commemorations in France - is giving rise to scientific 
conferences, the event presented by Franck Ancel creates an original, 
live link between past and future, expanding to other fields of research.

The site of the great Meudon wind tunnel, part of ONERA's heritage, 
illustrated in the work "From Aerostation to Aerospace"*, is the venue 
from which this conference/performance about the history of the arts of 
the conquest of the skies and space will be broadcast.

 From the late-19th century painter Odilon Redon and "The Eye Like a 
Strange Balloon (that) Mounts Toward Infinity", to Jacques Polieri with 
his "Satellite auditorium project", contemporary with the lunar 
astronauts, by way of V. Tatline or L. Fontana... the sky has struck the 
imagination and the cosmos has become visionary for artists.

In the age of sustainable development and emerging economies, the whole 
world does not yet communicate directly via satellites for mobile 
telephony, for long-range weather forecasts and other tools such as GPS 
devices, but they set the pace of our daily life. As in the past, 
contemporary creators make their own times their subject matter. Some 
are even imagining how to test weightlessness in ways other than as 
future space tourists.

In collaboration with Joachim Montessuis for the sound environment and 
Julien Bittner for the editing of the images, in partnership with France 
Streaming, this work will be broadcast to any computer QuickTime video 
player, streamed over the Net from this address: rtsp://qts.zonepro.fr/ancel
In 1957 we could hear the beeping of the Sputnik, in orbit around the 
earth, as a moving virtuality; in 2007 there are new avenues for the 
arts, the technologies and science that lead us towards other infinite 
spaces.

ONERA is France's leading player in aeronautical, aerospace and defence 
R&T. A force for innovation, expertise and forward planning, ONERA has 
had a part in the greatest aerospace successes: Ariane 5, the Airbus and 
Eurocopter series, Rafale, Falcon 7X, etc.
http://www.onera.fr

* ISBN 13: 978-2-7257-0014-4
http://www.onera.fr/actualites/2007-0162-onera-livre-meudon.php

Take a virtual tour of ONERA's great wind tunnel thanks to 360° images 
by Laurent Thion, a photographer for Ecliptique
http://www.ecliptique.com/fullscreen2/onera.html

Franck Ancel has been raising questions about technology for twenty 
years, tracing a line from the avant-garde art movements of the last 
century to the recent changes in creation on a planetary scale.
He has organised and coordinated conferences, exhibitions and 
performances, including a retrospective of "Jacques Polieri: creator of 
a modern scenography" at the French National Library in Paris in 2002.
Since the 9/11 attacks, he has set up an interactive, collaborative 
triptych called "A.I.T.", which raises questions about architecture, 
images and technology, on 20th century heritage sites. In 2005, he 
concluded a cycle of five communications for five continents entitled 
"From scenography to planetary network" with a world première on the 
Internet, from a plane in flight from Shanghai to Munich.
In 2006, he held a conference "From scenography to planetary network for 
Shanghai 2010" in Silicon Valley during the ISEA/ZeroOne Festival.

Information & Contact http://www.franck-ancel.com/atx