Did you see those sleek liveliness of infinite colonies that Amazon founder Jeff Bezosshowed off yesterday ? They were , not surprisingly , exalt by Gerard O’Neill ’s ideas from the 1970s . And if that kind of affair interests you ( and of course it does , you ’re reading Paleofuture aright now ) then you have to drop everything this consequence and watch a new documentary series on Amazon Prime calledArtist Depiction . And if you ca n’t drop everything right now , at least put it in your queue for this weekend .
Artist Depiction talk to three artists , Don Davis , Charles Lindsay , andRick Guidicewho have had an tremendous impact on the way that we look at the future . You may not recognize them by name , but you almost certainly know their work .
All three men have done work for future tense - focused customer , including NASA , and their art has popped up again and again here at Paleofuture . I even bring out some of Don Davis ’s artwork on the Paleofuture web log all the way back inFebruary of 2007 , when my ridiculous picayune experiment in blogging about retro - futurism was less than a month honest-to-goodness .
Illustration: (Rick Guidice/NASA)
work for NASA is largely an anonymous effort , whether you ’re building spacecraft , acquire software , or drawing some far - out vision for blank space colonies . So it ’s really interesting to take heed from guys like Don Davis and Rick Guidice , people who have had a huge influence on our predictions for space travel dating all the way back to midcentury . Charles Lindsay ’s piece of work is much more modern , but it ’s still fascinating to get a line his perspective on technology and the future .
“ Don and Rick are really the yin and yang of seventies blank space resolution , ” Brett Ryan Bonowicz , the managing director of Artist Depiction , told Paleofuture over the phone .
“ They often get confused for each other and they often get thrown into the same agglomerate of space colony art . So I really require to take this opportunity to show their differences and show how their approaches were different and everything else . ”
Bonowicz ’s last undertaking was a documentary film about the classical Sunday comic strip Closer Than We Think , which ran in American newspapers from 1958 to 1963 . And the nigh Than We Think documentary , which is available forrent and purchase on Vimeo , is another one to check out if you have n’t ascertain it .
“ I think Don ’s plan of attack start with the technical details , I think he ’s very technically minded , whereas I suppose Rick looks at it with more romanticism . There ’s a really romantic feeling to his paintings , ” said Bonowicz . “ Not to say that Don ’s art is ironic , but you’re able to be sure to know that the stars in the backdrop are accurate with his paintings , whereas with Rick , I ’m not quite sure that they are — and definitely space is n’t red . ”
The series dive into their artistic philosophies , their work flow , and their influences over the years . Both Davis and Guidice were heavily influenced by Chesley Bonestell , whose space art occur to limit the prosperous age of place travel painting in the 1950s and LX . Bonestell ’s employment graced the cover of Collier ’s mag and help oneself to define what the American public came to expect out of space exploration before the Apollo program was even a twinkle in NASA ’s center . In fact , Bonestell was draw futurist space colonies before NASA was even take shape in 1958 , imaginingtrips to Venusin 1950 andexpeditions to Marsin 1954 .
Despite sustain very unlike plan of attack , it ’s interesting to learn in the series that both Davis and Guidice knew Bonestell personally and relied on his advice for their own work . Bonowicz told me that it was fascinating to see how their generation was influenced by the generation that add up before them .
“ In the same retro - futuristic way that we look at Bonestell ’s work , we can expect twenty years into the future , ” said Bonowicz , draw the way that Guidice and Davis help the look of futuristic space locomotion evolve .
The music in each episode was done by different musicians , but all of them have a decidedly retro - futuristic tactile property . The Rick Guidice sequence , in picky , has an amazing soundtrack if you care darkly ambient soundscapes . That episode feature medicine fromAll India Radio .
You really just have to check out the series for yourself , and there ’s no exculpation not to when all three instalment are available to stream onAmazon Primeand the lagger ison YouTube . It ’s a must - watch for this weekend .
What ’s next for Bonowicz ? He ’s already project more installment of Artist Depiction with episodes on space artistsPamela Lee , William K. Hartmann , andPat Rawlings . Artist Depiction also has aTwitter accountif you want to keep up to engagement on the in style with the serial publication .
Honestly dismayed that@JeffBezoshasn’t found a way to own these originals ( Artist Depiction by Don Davis & Rick Guidice)pic.twitter.com / oWqz1rWgA4
— Artist Depiction | A Documentary Series ( @ArtistDepiction)May 10 , 2019
Again , there ’s no excuse for Paleofuture fans not to check out Artist Depiction . It ’s eventually putting names and look to otherwise anonymous masses who have facilitate work our universe . And we give thanks them for that . There patently would n’t be a Paleofuture blog without them .
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