Biography : Andy Gracie works at a point of separation between the arts and the sciences, creating situations of exchange which allow new understandings and knowledge systems to develop. Much of his work engages with the science of astrobiology and space research; the origins of life and the origins of the Solar System, coupled with a re-examination of their boundaries. His practice employs scientific theory and practice to question our relationships with exploration and experiment whilst simultaneously bringing into focus the very relationship between art and science, and how new knowledge is culturally assimilated. SPACE BY PROXY Abstract : The presentation will focus on various ideas about how and why we ask questions about our understandings of and interactions with space exploration. The artist's work develops parallel threads concerned with the presence of life in the universe and the origins of our local space environment. Projects employing terrestrial but space-faring model organisms as astrobiological test subjects have proposed novel forms of considering biological and planetary boundaries, and build on knowledge gained about our galactic neighbourhood by deep space probes. More recently a line of inquiry into the history, geology and trajectories of solar system materials and objects frame narratives about human connections with space as a physical system and how we explore, navigate and visualise it. How we attach significance to space as a location and a material entity become central to these investigations and experiments. You First Saw The Light..., 2017