PROJETS SINGULIERS > SPACE AND THE ARTS > WORKSHOP 2004 > Joo GRACIANO, Andr

OLIVEIRA, Hugo SIMOES

Hologrames: Projecting art into space

Joo GRACIANO, Andr OLIVEIRA, Hugo SIMOES

Art is an essential part of life. We encounter art in different forms, colours, textures and
smells on a daily basis. These stimuli are absent in Space. Therefore it is essential to
transmit and exhibit Art in Space. To achieve this a very high degree of interaction,
realism and 3D dimensionality is required. Considering the physical constraints in Space
vehicles, an electro-holographic system like holovideo, although expensive, seems the
appropriate choice[3]. Holographic displays would not only allow us to exhibit art, but to
create a better environment for humans outside Earth.

1. INTRODUCTION
Space remains, to a large extent, an unknown environment to humans. It is however an
ever-fascinating source of interest and curiosity. Todays astronauts, cosmonauts and
taikonauts are paving the way for the future Space explorers, scientists, Space tourists
and even Mars colonists. But wherever they are, humans need to express feelings and
ideas. This, in turn, leads to the creation of art, which has been an essential part of life
since the dawn of time: pre-historic men expressed the wonder and adventure of their
hunting trips through paintings in the caves; ancient Egyptians painted hieroglyphs on
the walls of pyramids and temples; during the Renaissance, the new intellectual and
artistic directions could be found in grand palaces; and with the advent of television and
Internet, our homes have become flooded with views and ideas of modern life. Art is now
available to (almost) everyone everywhere on Earth.
The next step?
To make it available also in Space.
On Earth, we have all the resources required to make art: to make a sculpture, to make
a painting, to compose a musical piece we have access to several means and
mediums for presenting our art. Space, on the other hand, is a harsh environment where
our resources are (still) scarce, constraints dominate and the physical space, as well as
budgets, are limited. These constraints take on an even greater role as we start to go
further away from the security of our home planet [7][8].
In this paper we propose that the best compromise is achieved by using holograms,
either static or electro-holographic systems otherwise known as holovideos.
Ideally, a 3-dimensional communication of Art would provide a much more involving and
interacting vehicle for an artistic expression without the burden of investment in
resources.
Currently being developed in several laboratories around the world (Spatial Imaging
Group at the MediaLab, M.I.T., for example), the technology of holographic images and
movies could provide astronauts with three-dimensional objects and actions otherwise
almost impossible to obtain in the 3D-contstrained environment of a Space station such

as the International Space Station (ISS).

Furthermore, by showing holographic projections both on Earth and in Space, physical
frontiers would be broken, creating a bond between life on Earth and life in Space.

2. APPLICATIONS
But what kind of art could one take into Space?
It would be possible to show already existing art. All the classical works of art could be
available in Space - imagine almost touching Michaelangelos David with the setting sun
as background! Astronauts could be given the opportunity to enjoy their favourite
painting, sculpture, poem, photograph or dance. If you love Tchaikvoskys Nutcracker
why not appreciate it during your trip to the Lunar base?
Furthermore, contemporary and future artists should be given the opportunity to exhibit
their art in Space. We envisage two ways of doing this, either by giving all the creative
freedom to the artist, or by asking artists to create an art piece inspired by a particular
theme (for example a specific Space mission). This could lead to interesting synergies
between Space and Earth. Art could be exhibited simultaneously in Space and in
museums on Earth. Visitors of a particular museum could enjoy the same art, at the
same time as astronauts on their way to the rims of the Solar System.
Taking it one step further, people on Earth could be encouraged to interact and modify
the artwork they are viewing, for example in a museums interactive exhibition. People in
Space could then observe these changes in real-time, and in turn introduce their
experiences into the same art pieces which would then evolve as an appealing
exchange of experiences between Earth and Space (Fig. 1).
Another way to improve this exchange of views could be, for example, the organization
of school contests of drawings or messages conveying childrens feelings about Space,
that would be shared everywhere. This would have the advantage of contributing to the
development of artistic skills in youngsters.
Finally, art could be chosen with the objective of providing a relaxing atmosphere. Longduration stays in Space have been known to cause psychological issues among
astronauts [7][8] and can have serious consequences in their cognitive and
perceptual/motor skills. These issues, and more particularly those related with the
workload of the astronauts (e.g. work overload and underload) and their psychosocial
situation (e.g. absence of family and friends) could be mitigated through the exhibition of
Art in a holovideo system. Imagine yourself seeing something soothing that will help you
relax on your 1-year trip to Mars (be it films of friends and family, an underwater scene or
rolling waves on your favourite beach).
All these applications will require a very high degree of interaction, realism and 3D
dimensionality. Considering the physical constraints in Space vehicles, an electroholographic system like holovideo, although expensive, seems the appropriate choice[3].
This technology has already been established and accepted [1] and several 3-D displays
have been developed and tested [1,2,3]. In fact, holography seems to be the only
possible technique that can provide all the depth cues such as binocular disparity,
occlusion and motion parallax which increase the realism of images and contribute to an
almost palpable experience [2].

Fig.1. Cultural interchange through a holovideo: a) in a museum on Earth; b) in a module of the ISS (artist
impression).

3. HOLOGRAPHY OVERVIEW
Holograms are records of the complex interference patterns between light reflected off
objects illuminated by a coherent light source and a reference light source (also
coherent). To visualize a hologram, one has to illuminate it, causing the light beam to
interact with the recorded interference pattern. This optical wavefront reconstruction
makes the image appear to be physically present.
Holography can be divided into two fields, optical holography and electro-holography (or
computer holography).
3.1. Optical Holography
Holograms first appeared in 1948 and became practical in the 1960s when coherent
monochromatic laser light became available. The principle of optical holography consists
in recording, on a photosensitive medium, the intensity pattern resulting from the
interference of light reflected by the object to be recorded with a mutually coherent
reference beam, typically a laser. The reference beam allows the medium to record both
magnitude and phase of the incident object wavefront, effectively recording variation in
both the intensity and the direction of the light. To reconstruct an image, the recorded
interference pattern (the "fringe" pattern) modulates an illuminating beam of light. The
modulated light diffracts and reconstructs a 3-D replica of the wavefront that was
scattered from the object scene. The image possesses all the depth cues exhibited by
the original object, including continuous parallax and ocular accommodation [2].
3.2. Electro-holography
Electro-holography generates 3-D holographic images from a 3-D description of a scene.
This process involves many steps which can be grouped into two main processes: a
computational stage in which the 3-D description of the scene in converted into a
holographic fringe, and an optical stage, in which light is modulated by the fringe [3].
This spatial modulation of the computer-generated fringe is done by a 3-D holographic
display that imitates the reconstruction step in optical holography. The main problem with
electro-holography resides in the computation of the holographic fringes which require
demanding computational power. Several strategies resembling 3-D computer graphics
ray-tracing have been developed for the computation of the holographic fringes [4].

The first methods used were based on the calculus of the phase and amplitude of the
object wavefront at the plane of the hologram through the use of Fourier transforms.
They attempted to produce fringe patterns that closely resembled the fringes recorded in
optical holography. These methods proved too slow and inefficient for the computation of
3-D images [2]. Other methods are based on this one but introduce several
improvements.
One of these methods, the Bipolar intensity approach computes only the fringe pattern
resulting from the interference pattern the object wavefront and the reference beam
ignoring the object self-interference and the reference beam bias. The absence of object
self-interference noise and reference bias are some of the advantages of using the
bipolar intensity computation. This method also allows the linear summation of elemental
fringes (with each elemental fringe representing a single image element) [4]. Precomputed elemental fringes constituted an improvement on the bipolar intensity
approach increasing the efficiency of computer generated holograms considerably.

Fig.2. Overview of a holovideo system; production of the holo fringes on Earth and exhibition in Space.

Real time 3D holographic displays are expensive, new and rare"[3]. Despite that, we
can start thinking about their real Implementation in Space. Earlier in this section we saw
that the main difficulty with electro-holography is the computation of the holographic
fringes, which still require intense computational power (the first holomovie had a size of
50 cm3; the latest holomovies have the size of 1000 cm3, 20 times bigger). But that
computation could be made on Earth, and the holomovie transmitted or carried on a
storage device to the Space vehicle, where it could be seen the same way we see DVDs
in our homes. Current electronic-holographic displays still require a reasonable amount
of space (about 2 meters in length) mainly due to the optical part of the system. But the
way technology is evolving and if the investigation effort in this area continues it is
foreseeable that in a few years more powerful (in terms of computational power,
enabling real-time transmission or hologram computation in Space vehicles) and
compact systems will become available.

4. CONCLUSIONS
Nowadays, we are still in the beginning of Space exploration: we are sending probes to
other planets, moons and comets, we are sending humans into orbit and even further.
And now the time has come to think about sending them much further away... to Mars.

But this humanization of Space has to be twofold: as we send humans to other places in
the Solar System and beyond, we have to make the Space environment a more human
friendly one - and what better way of doing that then through Art?
On Earth, creating Art is a common possibility: we have the resources, and its a matter
of having the inspiration. But in Space, those resources are scarce, and environments
are heavily constrained. Because of that, we proposed that the best compromise is
achieved by using holograms, either static or electro-holographic systems (otherwise
known as holovideos). A holovideo-based system would be a space-saving, costeffective way of providing astronauts with Art, which is (or should be) an essential part of
the life of every human being.
It is never too soon to start thinking about holovideo applications and the advantages
they could bring to Human beings here on Earth, and to those that are far away from
their home planet, connecting both just like an umbilical cord.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank Kati Liedevaara for her valuable suggestions to this paper.

REFERENCES
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Joo GRACIANO, Andr OLIVEIRA, Hugo SIMOES & Leonardo/Olats, mai 2004