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Peter Hennessey's 'My Hubble' Brings Space Tech Back Down to Earth

by Matthew Zuras on June 7, 2010 at 05:15 PM

'my hubble' by peter hennessey
The technology that has driven space exploration is frequently inaccessible to those of us outside of NASA. Sure, the Air and Space Museum will provide visitors with the chance to see, in person, the epic machinery that drove the Space Race, (and accelerated the competition and political divide between the Soviet Union and the U.S.) but not until they became retired cultural artifacts. The Hubble telescope, for example, exists in the popular imagination as a media concept; we are only privy to renderings of the telescope, or the game-changing images of our universe that it beams back to Earth. For all intents and purposes, the Hubble only exists for many of us because we are told that it is there.

Australian artist Peter Hennessey is interested in these massive objects because they've fueled science, war and the political intersection between the two. His epic scale models of the tech brings the abstract back down to Earth, giving viewers a sort of physical effigy that they can see and interact with themselves. As part of the 2010 Sydney Biennial, Hennessey created 'My Hubble (the universe turned in on itself),' a meticulously constructed but pared-down version of the real telescope.

Created from seven different images of the Hubble, Hennessey's version was designed in Adobe Illustrator instead of 3-D software. From start to finish, the entire project took about three months, during which time plywood was laser-cut and built into sections for later assembly on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbor.

In a reversal of the real Hubble, the "lens" of 'My Hubble' is pointed at the ground, so visitors can stand in front of the object and become part of the "universe" that is then "transmitted" up to the heavens. Conceptual, to be sure, but the project's detail and scale are breathtaking nonetheless. [From: Designboom]

Tags: art, design, hubble, hubble telescope, HubbleTelescope, my hubble, MyHubble, peter hennessey, PeterHennessey, space, sydney, sydney biennial, SydneyBiennial, top

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