"The Overview Effect"
Astronauts have a special sense of the interconnectedness of the entire Earth when they look at it from the outside and think about what humanity should be like.
However, many of us on Earth still find it difficult to have this sense of reality in our daily lives.
In order to acquire a co-created identity as true "Earthlings" in the space age, we should have this sense of "Overview Effect.
Nomura's first space artwork, "Eyes on Us a.k.a PION Plate" which will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2023, will be mounted in the Exposed Facility outside Kibo JEM, and after several months of exposure to radiation and strong ultraviolet rays in space, will return to the Earth. It will be the first art piece in history to experience space.
Nomura will use this opportunity to create an art project that connects space and earth so that people around the world can experience the over view effect together while on the ground. This is the "PION Plate and LoGlobe Tour.
★We will update the progress from time to time within this project page, so please stay tuned!!
On March 14, 2023 8:30PM EDT. The PION Plate launched to ISS by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA official launch page is here.
On March 16, it successfully docked to the ISS. Please experience the tense moment from here.
This is the current position of the ISS.
It circles the earth in 90 minutes, 16 times a day. This is the tracking of the Element of Universe.
This is the current position of the LoGlobe Tour Car with 4 other plates on it. (Updated as needed) This road trip symbolizes the Element of Earth.
This project will share the experience with you through NFT !!! Come aboard our Spaceship!
This work, titled “Eyes on Us” (a.k.a PION Plate), is a 68mm aluminum plate with special leather engraving on both sides, and the front and back are superimposed to form a unique image.
The front side of the plate, which looks out into the universe, shows the “eye of civilization” that has progressed through our curiosity, adventurous spirit, and mind for exploration.
The back side, which looks down at the earth from space, shows our “inner world” that looks at who we are and what we are doing on the Earth now.
Nomura calls the boundary plane where these two gazes overlap “PION”.
Based on this history, Nomura considers the plate to be sent to the International Space Station as a dodecahedron, symbolizing the universe, and he has designed the plate to be sent to places that symbolize the remaining four elements: the tetrahedron, symbolizing fire; the hexahedron, symbolizing earth; the octahedron, symbolizing air; and the icosahedron, symbolizing water. The “PION Plate and LoGlobe Tour” is planned to send a plate engraved with the same PION concept to each of these locations by hand, and to inhabit the time-space log of this solar system and the Earth, which are traveling at high speed through space, in the artwork.
The geometric properties of PION have a structure derived from the four-dimensional extension of the five Platonic solids, which have been philosophized as the fundamental forces of the universe since ancient Greek times. Since ancient times, our ancestors have thought about the nature of the universe by relating the elements of fire, water, earth, air and universe to these five polyhedra. This spirit of inquiry is the driving force behind the development of modern civilization and science.
The tour will depart on a road trip using a dedicated vehicle at the same time as the launch from Florida in March.
The “LoGlobe Tour” was conceived to embed the time-space logs of the solar system and Earth’s travels through the vast expanse of space into this plate and to NFT-ize the log, allowing many people to experience the overview effect while remaining on Earth.
This grand space art project will start on the spring equinox of 2023 and continue until the autumn equinox six months later powered by ONBD. Through Nomura’s activities on a road trip in a dedicated vehicle equipped with satellite network systems and next-generation TV video systems, as well as the PION LoGlobe NFT, let’s embark on a journey together to feel the universe and Earth.
This project is partly supported by crowdfunding. Below is a list of corporate sponsors.
We are looking for donors to help us in this project.