Introduction

We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.

Joseph A. Cooper, Interstellar by Christopher Nolan

I was always fascinated by science fiction novels. It is hard not to be when one were born in the country that actively participated in the space race and sent the first human into the cosmos. So when Interstellar, a science fiction movie by Christofer Nolan, was released in 2014, it easily became my favorite one. The only thing I would not believe back then is how close this scenario is to reality we are facing right now.

With my passionate interest in space exploration and science fiction, I saw moving to Mars as a topic of study with great potential and expected it to be very fun to work on. But in the process, I discovered an incredible depth to it: moving to Mars is so much more than just the pure scientific joy of becoming a multiplanetary species.

Reviewing the topic of space exploration, I noticed some major issues that are often critiqued in the scientific world, and I would like to put these topics to a broader discussion. In this paper, I would like to focus on the ethical side of the problem.

For example, one of the ethical issues is that inhabitation of Mars is often seen as a necessity for the survival of human civilization. Because of the complexity of ecological problems, some people nowadays indeed push society to believe, that moving all of humanity to Mars is an easy way out of this situation. Another issue is the colonial lexicon being used when referring to the topic of space exploration. I noticed that no one calls this phenomenon “moving” – it is colonization, occupation, or exploitation. Neither of these words has a positive connotation that we might want to apply to our future.

All the ethical issues are deeply connected at the root and it is not possible to study them separately: they are all results of the colonial mindset existing in the world until now. That is why I intend to answer only one yet very important question through my artistic project Planet B: how could our colonial past impact our future?

The main goal of the master project is to find colonial patterns both in visual communication and space exploration. I aim to increase awareness of the problem, that our world is still living by this same old colonial set of rules. By questioning the status quo in graphic design — namely the western standard or “universal” design — and interpreting it as a sign of our colonial past, this work will contribute to the Decolonising Design Movement, and, therefore, the visual communication field itself by debunking and overthrowing exclusive outdated standards.

At the core of Planet B is a very ambitious assumption of Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX, who claimed that by 2050 there will be a million people living on Mars. This statement has inspired me to work on this topic at first, and, later, to imagine the type of reality he is trying to create. Design fiction as a method helps us visualize where we are going and where we will arrive, based on the current situation. I chose an installation as a display of my idea to create a sense of immersion into one of many possible futures, leaving the viewer the freedom to decide whether he/she likes that perspective or not.

In an attempt to answer the research question and accomplish the goals of the project, I will present my research in the following structure. In “Part I. Background”, I will review the theoretical background of my work in four chapters: history of space exploration, ethical critique on space exploration, space exploration in art and culture and decolonization of design. In “Part II. Instruments”, I will offer an overview of the method, form, style, content, and communication tools which helped me translate my ideas into the form of visual communication. In “Part III. Documentation”, I will present my artistic project Planet B. There I will explain how the ideas mentioned in the first chapter were represented in this example with the help of the methods mentioned in the second chapter.

Assumption of Elon Musk that by 2050 a million people will live on Mars. Source: @elonmusk