2011/2013
Computer model, HD video (4:47 min), 3D print (3000mm x 30mm)
The Tsiolkovsky Trick assembles every freely available model of space rockets found on the Internet into one, chronologically ordered chain of our efforts to transcend gravity. Inspired by a conversation with one of the engineers of NASA's Voyager mission, the title relates to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation that first suggested a staged rocket as a trick to overcome one of the most basic constraints of life on Earth, conceived in the context of Russian Cosmism and its imperative of the ‘common task’. Constituting a historical meta-vehicle of sorts, the work aims to ask whether we are still involved in an effort to overcome those constraints and suggests the rocket as a key artifact while deliberately leaving open the question for contemporary ideological drivers.
