Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

AAA logo

The Association of Autonomous Astronauts is a worldwide network of community-based groups dedicated to building their own

Luther Blissett (nom de plume).[2]

The Association's ostensible five-year mission, a reference to Star Trek, was to "establish a planetary network to end the monopoly of corporations, governments and the military over travel in space".[2] Artists who became involved were often connected to the zine scene or mail art movements.[2] The five-year mission's completion was marked at the 2000 Fortean Times conference.[3] Some chapters have continued activities to the present day. Several AAAers have experienced zero-gravity training flights.

The writer Tom Hodgkinson described participants as "a loose bunch of Marxists, futurists, and revolutionaries on the dole", going on to explicate their mission as "reclaim[ing] the idea of space travel for the common man". To the AAA, he said, "space travel represented an ideal of freedom".[4] Annick Bureaud of Leonardo/OLATS viewed their work as "space art" that "combine[d] freely space, cyberspace, raves, esoteric things, techno-music, etc.", calling attention to "how they recycle ... key images (the MIR Space Station, the astronauts on the Moon, etc.) ... mixed with science-fiction (and specially Star Trek) buzz-words or images" and then subjected these "sacred icons" to "iconoclastic treatments".[5]

In his book Unleashing the Collective Phantoms, the theorist Brian Holmes said of the AAA: "The ideas sound fantastic, but the stakes are real: imagining a political subject within the virtual class, and therefore, within the economy of cultural production and intellectual property that had paralyzed the poetics of resistance."[6]

The London chapter participated in the J18

boost its speed
toward the outer Solar System.

Timeline

Summer Solstice
1997
  • 23 April 1995: Launch of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts in the grounds of Windsor Castle, UK.
  • 23 April 1996: Publication of 1st Annual Report: "Here Comes Everybody!"
  • 23 April 1997: Publication of 2nd Annual Report: "Dreamtime Is Upon Us!"
  • 21–22 June 1997: 1st Intergalactic Conference – Public Netbase, Vienna, Austria
  • 23 April 1998: Publication of 3rd Annual Report: "Moving in Several Directions At Once!"
  • 18–19 April 1998: Intergalactic Conference – Link Centre, Bologna, Italy
  • 23 April 1999: Publication of 4th Annual Report: "Space Travel By Any Means Necessary!"
  • 18 – 27 June 1999: Space 1999: Ten Days Which Shook The Universe – various venues, London, UK. http://www.deepdisc.com/space1999/
  • 23 April 2000: Publication of 5th Annual Report: "See You In Space!"
  • The 333 days : series of encounters following the 5YP, including Gravité Zéro festival in Paris
  • 23 April 2005: AAA's ten-year encounter in Paris (http://confluences.net), in support to Steve Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble
  • 23 April 2007 : AAA II Wake-Up Communique: "The Dream Is Just Beginning"

AAA groups and links

Music

  • "Rave In Space" CD (2000)
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Rave-In-Space/release/379802

Influences on other subcultures

See also

References

  1. ^ Dee (April–May 1998). "Escape from Gravity – The Dreamtime Mission Revisited". Fringecore magazine. Archived from the original on 20 December 2005. Retrieved 2006-01-03.
  2. ^ a b c "Multiple name". Sztuka Fabryka. 2004. Archived from the original on 15 September 2004. Retrieved 3 January 2006. Sztuka Fabryka is a worldwide non-profit artists organisation based in Belgium.
  3. ^ Mark Pilkington (June 2002). "Roads Less Traveled". Fortean Times (159). Archived from the original on 8 February 2006. Retrieved 2006-01-03.
  4. ISBN 0-06-077968-3. Hodgkinson is editor of The Idler
    .
  5. ^ Annick Bureaud (1998). "Space Art". Leonardo/OLATS. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 3 January 2006. From the proceedings of the Rencontres du 13 avril interdisciplinary conference. Via the Internet Archive.
  6. ^ "Unleashing the Collective Phantoms", Brian Holmes, Autonomedia, 2008
  7. ^ Sathnam Sanghera. "Anarchists attempt to paralyse the City 10,000 activists are due to join a protest in London against capitalism". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 January 2006.
  8. ^ "Halt the Nuclearization and Weaponization of Space: Report from the UK". Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Archived from the original on 15 December 2005. Retrieved 3 January 2006.

Further reading

An overview of Neoist activities in the 1990s, including highlights of the AAA's first two years.
  • "Unleashing the Collective Phantoms", Brian Holmes, Autonomedia, USA, 2008
A text discussing the AAA : http://www.republicart.net/disc/artsabotage/holmes01_en.htm
  • "Anche Tu Astronauta: guida all'esplorazione independente dello spazio", Riccardo Balli, Castelvecchi editore, Roma, 1998
An insight in Italian language into AAA's philosophy, literature, history and future.
The book is free online: https://archive.org/details/anche-tu-astronauta
  • "Quitter la gravité", edited by Ewen Chardronnet, Editions de l'Eclat, Paris, 2001
A selection of texts in french language into AAA's philosophy, literature, history and future.
The book is free online in lyber : http://lyber-eclat.net/lyber/aaa/quitter_la_gravite.html

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Association_of_Autonomous_Astronauts&oldid=1192192985"