header image of what's up orbital art gallery study
header image of what's up orbital art gallery study
header image of what's up orbital art gallery study

CHROMOCOSMOLOGY

CHROMOCOSMOLOGY

CHROMOCOSMOLOGY

Act I

Act I

Act I

an unfolding space performance in three acts

CHROMOCOSMOLOGY is an ongoing performance in which space becomes a co-author of colour. The work is composed on Earth, executed in orbit through exposure and duration, and completed through return and reconstruction. Procedure, space and altered matter function as the performance’s score.

scrollable score of the performance

Act I - Rehearsal

Act I - Rehearsal

Antagonists - Chromocosmic Triptych

Antagonists - Chromocosmic Triptych

antaginist tile White
antaginist tile White

WHITE

antaginist tile Colour
antaginist tile Colour

COLOUR

antaginist tile Black
antaginist tile Black

BLACK

Chromocosmology is an ongoing body of work in which colour is treated not as image, but as matter under conditions. It begins from a simple premise: in space, colour is no longer stable. It becomes shaped - physically, temporally, and conceptually - by an environment that does not care about intention.

At the core of Chromocosmology stand three colourful ceramic tiles that will be flown and exposed outside the International Space Station. These flight objects are the project’s cornerstones: the primary works around which everything else is composed. They are not images, not symbols, and not souvenirs of a mission. They are instruments, surfaces designed to hold colour in a place where colour is no longer stable, where it becomes physically negotiated by an environment that does not respond to intention.

Chromocosmology unfolds as an ongoing space performance in three acts. The performance is not staged only in orbit. It begins on Earth, in the discipline of preparation: the material tests, calibration studies, protocols, and constraints that make flight possible. It continues through the choreography of space operations: technology, procedures, safety reviews, handling rules, schedules, delays, human actors, and institutional systems, each of which shapes what can be made and how it can exist. The work is executed through time, logistics, and exposure, and completed through return: when altered matter becomes readable again, through scrutiny, translation, and the creation of new works.

This project lives deliberately between art and science. Its methods borrow from scientific practice not to illustrate research, but to give the artwork a rigorous way to exist. The scientific actors and infrastructures involved are not external support; they are part of the performance apparatus. In this sense, Chromocosmology is both an aesthetic proposition into 'making space' and a material inquiry: a colour-field practice expanded into a non-terrestrial laboratory, where the conditions of making are inseparable from the work itself.

Chromocosmology is part of my wider practice of Astromorphic Art: work that is co-authored by the space environment. Rather than depicting space, astromorphic works are materially and conceptually shaped by non-terrestrial conditions - duration, exposure, constraint, and the procedures required to operate beyond Earth. Space is not a backdrop here, but an active creator.

Credits

Creation and curation: Arno Geens

Production: The Foundry vzw

Co-production: Astronautical Art Initiative vzw

Space logistics partner: Aegis Aerospace

Colour advice: Kremer Pigmente

Legal advice: INDIE Law, Emmanuel Verraes

Scientific advice: KIK - Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium

THANK YOU:

Luis Guzman, Jessica Piness, Jamie Jarvis, NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, ISSNL - International Space Station National Laboratory