Vargas-Suarez Universal
Extra Vehicular Activities
2009
live ISS-EVA broadcast ink wall drawings
6 x 80 feet (in 2 parts at 6 x 40 feet each)
installation view at "Theatre of More" group exhibition
White Box, New York
Since the Spring of 2007, my attention, daily studio practice and sleep schedule has been dictated
by the manned spaceflight program missions conducted by NASA and Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space
Agency). Of all the activities associated with the American and Russian space programs,
Extra-vehicular Activities or E.V.A.'s, also known as "space walks", have become the primary source
to create wall drawing murals and oil paintings. Live 6 to 8 hour televised video broadcasts of the spacewalks are projected onto walls or canvas. The overall compositions are a result of accumulated markings based
on geometric shapes created by the architecture of the spacecraft and the shapes of outer space
created by the edges of the architecture of the space craft (the negative space). These are then
mapped out with "vectors", and assigned colors based on reflections of the earth as reflected on
the surfaces of the spacecraft.
The live video transmissions are caught from cameras aboard the ISS, the Space Shuttle, and mostly
from the helmet cameras of American space suits as well as Russian Orlan space suits
(worn by the space walkers). The audio dialogue, between mission controls in Koryolov (Moscow),
and Houston, the constantly moving curvature of the Earth below, the complex architecture of the
ISS and the work being performed, are carefully traced on the wall or canvas during the entire
duration of each space walk. I am interested in the visual results acquired through live video
broadcasts, and the visual relationship between the vacuum of space, aerospace architecture, and
the kinetic energy of the ISS, which is moving at 17,500 miles per hour. These drawings and
paintings aim to depict the visual dynamics of such an event.