The Artifact
- Year
- 2024-2025
- Artist
- Hoang Nguyen
- University
- University of Maryland
- Major
- Astronomy
- Title
- The Artifact
- Genre/Medium
- digital illustration
- Category
- digital still
- Current Location
- Digital Only
- Description
-
I continue drawing human analogies to the mission, which to me makes the whole thing feel more personal. Here I portray both the asteroid and the spacecraft that shares its name as humanoids, reusing the design from my first piece. The asteroid is recognizable from the positioning of the skeleton, which recalls Psyche’s pose in a well-known depiction of the goddess being taken away by Eros. Likely formed from the frequent collisions in the early solar system, it is reduced to this unknowable metal core.
The mechanical sheep jumping over the frame reminds us that this isn’t a scene that has happened yet, just the android’s dream; we’re not sure yet if Psyche really is part of the core of a planetesimal or if it is differentiated at all. We follow the counterclockwise motion of the two sheep as if turning back time, taking us from the complete terrestrial planets to the mechanical sheep, like the spacecraft leaving the inner solar system, to following the organic sheep, as if chasing the asteroid of the same name, to the cores of the terrestrial planets—what the asteroid could have become and what we might learn about the planets from it.
The Moon at the top of the frame, another witness of the chaotic early solar system, mirrors the eyes of the android and watches over this scene, a portrait of someone who is now forgotten to us.
- Media
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The Artifact
Part of The Artifact