The countdown to a planned (but never launched) 1973 NASA space mission is reconstructed in Marco Brambilla’s ambitious multimedia work Apollo XVIII. Originally screened in New York’s Times Square, the multi-channel video installation appeared across more than a dozen screens amid the saturation of LED ads, as well as hosting the city’s New Year’s Eve countdown.
“I wanted the spectacle of the launch to challenge the advertising it is interrupting, to be even more larger-than-life than the imagery we are constantly bombarded with in Times Square,” explains the genre-bending artist.
At a time of renewed interest in space travel, due to Mars One’s aim to put humans on the red planet by 2026, Brambilla taps into the collective consciousness of the public by confronting the shared experience associated with the 1969 lunar landing and shuttle program.
“I'm fascinated by mixing the nostalgia of the analog age with the promises of today's technology,” he says of combining found footage sourced in the NASA archive with new computer-generated imagery. “I hope to leave the viewer to decide the value of virtual and physical modes of exploring.”
What formed the genesis of the project?
Marco Brambilla: I have long been fascinated with Apollo 18. When the space race was effectively over with the Russians, NASA had built two rockets for two subsequent missions to the moon: Apollo 18 and Apollo 19. Forty-five years later, I wanted to re-stage a fictitious mission – a simulation, using Times Square as a virtual launch site.
What was it like delving into the NASA archive, and how did you select material?
MB: I had been speaking to NASA in 2013 about collaborating with them; they work with an artist every year and offer access to their archives and facilities. The connection between the idea of a Times Square presentation on 50 screens and the spectacle of a countdown to a space launch connected the idea of a simulated mission to a very real communal viewing experience. This juxtaposition prompted me to reconceive the NASA project with this in mind
Would you go into space given the opportunity?
MB: Yes, I would. I’m not exactly sure how this could happen, but I would definitely sign up.
Apollo XVIII is on show at as part of a site-specific installation in Times Square, screened each night at 11:57pm, and at the McCabe Fine Art gallery, Stockholm, through March 31. Watch a bespoke cut of Brambilla's multi-channel installation that screened at Times Square March 20, below: