2019 – Ongoing
March 7, 2020 – 11.50 (GMT+7)
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station SLC-40, Kennedy Space Center
Pearl of Lunar project by Artist (Henryandpartners) with Researchers and Scientists from Thailand was launched together with Sojourner2020 and other 7 artworks with SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-20 to International Space Station for 1 month experiment in zero gravity.
Pearl of Lunar is a continuation of the project titled The Merchants Trinity which explored infrastructural desire and the futurity of Belt-and-Road Initiatives as seen through wealth accumulation, labor infiltration, and geopolitical control. But also, more ephemerally, the affective meshwork of greed and possessiveness that functions at the level of the individual and corporate entities. Through researching unfinished projects such as the Kra Canal, Space Technology Roadmap and Digital Belt and Road, we map complex relationships between China and the rest of the world. Departing from a motif of the pearl as a signifier of ambitious strategies and predatory tendencies in the oceanic sphere,
Pearl of Lunar portrays both the ancient and future ambitions of the project of the historic Silk Road. The Synchrotron light engraves an unfinished roadmap. The pearl of lunar then sends with a rocket to Low Earth Orbit atmosphere while chemical reactions assemble Nacre or Mother of Pearl which ultimately reflects the future roadmap of an Earth-Moon “Special Economic Zone”.
Design & Engineering Processes
We want to project Interplanetary Silk Road song into space
Research
Design, Prototyping and Leak test
We only tested it with fresh water pearl – Sea Water Pearl we suspect Xray will affect Barium inside the Pearl.
Photo: Wenjun Liang
Special Thanks to team members who put their efforts on this project
Henryandpartners
Space Zab Company
Freaklab, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi
Teera Chantarojsiri, Mahidol University in Bangkok.
Nirawat Thammajak, Suranaree University of Technology in Nakhon Ratchasima
Sukrit Sucharitakul, Chiang Mai University
Manus Sriring
Thai Jewelry Manufacturer Co.,Ltd.,
Synchrotron Light Research Institute (BL6a)
Rungrueang Phatthanakun
Kriettisak Srisom
Jirawan Monkrathok
Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency
Takerng Pattanopas
Brian Curtin
Pattaree Deelorm
#PearlofLunar
#Henryandpartners
#MerchantsTrinity
#Freaklab
#SpaceZab
This project is collaborated with Xin Liu, MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative
Pearl of Lunar is part of Sojourner 2020 project with other 8 artist group.
our works appear at International Space Station for 1 month
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/sojourner-2020/
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/events-calendar/2020/ march/rocket-launch-spacex-falcon-9-crs-20