Meet the artist behind the first sculpture created in space

It’s not the first time a work of art has travelled through space — in 1969, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg were among a group of artists who sent their work to the moon with the Apollo 12 mission, while Damien Hirst sent one of his dot paintings on the illfated mission to Mars, Beagle 2, in 2003. But Israeli contemporary artist Eyal Gever’s #Laugh project — a 3D printed visualization of laughter — recently became the first work of art created in space.

Project #Laugh

Gever worked with NASA and Made In Space on the #Laugh project, which sent a digital visualization of the sound of laughter to the International Space Station, where it was printed with a zerogravity 3D printer.

Art and culture are key to life in space

Made In Space is an organization that aims to colonize space and make it not only habitable, but also a place where culture can thrive. For years, they have used 3D printers to create tools on space stations. The company believes that for humankind to survive in space, they must be able to create art and culture.

Seeing the sound of laughter in space

The idea the #Laugh project came from Gever’s idea of merging human sounds with the silence of space. He had members of the public record the sound of their laughter on an app that would then convert the sound into an image that could be shared with friends via social media. The image with the most retweets and shares was chosen to make the cosmic journey.

3D printing helps NASA projects

At a conference for the International Mediterranean Tourism Market (IMTM), Gever spoke of how the project was part NASA’s efforts to use 3D printing for the development of a more selfsustaining environment for astronauts in space. The goal is to eliminate the need to launch hardware and spare parts from Earth by making it possible for astronauts to 3D print the tools they need.

The 1977 NASA voyager Golden Records sent sounds and scenes from Earth into space, with the idea that extraterrestrial societies or future humans could interpret them. Similarly, the #Laugh sculpture could be read and converted back into sound sometime in the future, according to Gever.

Gever is a contemporary artist whose works have previously involved 2D and 3D visual representations. Some of his other notable works include Waterdancer (2015), a projection of light on a water wall, and Piece of Ocean (2014), a 3D printed sculpture representing ocean waves.