#LAUGH

#Laugh is a global collaborative art project that will result in the first piece of art to be created in space, when it’s printed on a zero-gravity 3D-printer aboard the International Space Station. 

The project began in 2014, when Eyal Gever, the renowned digital artist took a phone call from Made in Space - the NASA contractor founded in 2010 with the goal of “enabling humanity’s future in space” - in which he was offered the opportunity to become the first artist to make art in space.

‘What would you do if you could create art in zero gravity?’ was the challenge they set him.

If humanity is one day soon to thrive in space -- argue Made In Space Inc., then creating art and culture in space, is equally as important as sending out people and the technology to support them.

Gever knew that the project carried onerous responsibilities and that the subject he chose would have to have universal appeal, that was neither country nor culturally-specific. After working on a range of ideas, his friend and spoken word poet Suli Breaks suggested #Laugh, the most human sound of all, and the project  -- to create a 3D sculpture fabricated from a sound simulation of crowd-sourced laughter -- was born.

People from all around the world can record themselves laughing, visualize it via an #Laugh app and share it with their friends. The laughter with the most likes after one month will be sent to the International Space Station to be 3D-printed and then released into orbit.

“The earliest cave paintings were of human hands which were a way of proclaiming and celebrating the presence of humanity,” says Gever.

“#Laugh will be the 21st century version of that -- a mathematically-accurate encapsulation of human laughter, simply floating through space, waiting to be discovered.”

EYAL GEVER

Eyal Gever is a contemporary artist whose work sits at the fusion of art and technology.  Using just a palette of code, he develops life-like digital simulations of moments in time -- often dramatic or catastrophic in nature -- from which he fabricates 3D-printed sculptures and installations.

Few artists possess Gever’s deep knowledge and passion for all things digital. The advantage, he says, is that he’s not overwhelmed by the power of technology for its own sake. “I’ve simply used the latest technology to develop a new language for my art.”

And Gever’s artistic language is constantly evolving. In 2015 his sculptures were exhibited as part of a Turner retrospective at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe alongside Gerard Richter and JMW Turner and he created Waterdancer, a “3D liquid simulation” featuring a dancer whose body appears to be made of water, which disperses as she moves.   

See more of Eyal's work at www.eyalgever.com