There is a wonderful scene in WALL-E of the spaceship Axion re-entering Earth’s polluted and desolate atmosphere; space waste is littering the planetary field surrounding the pale blue dot and suffocating it. Immediately seeing SMATIK’s Dead Astronaut wallpaper, I remembered this scene with great clarity.
There is currently 19,000 pieces of debris larger than 5cm and another 300,000 pieces smaller than 1cm that is hovering around our homeland. Space junk consists of a wide range of material left behind from the quest of space exploration – spent rockets, old satellites, etc. This growing beehive of debris that may collide with operational spacecrafts and other bodies.
I love the detail in SMATIK astronauts floating in dead orbit. The repetitive figure’s eye balls fixed upwards towards the sky – as if they saw their death coming.
André SMATIK Ljosaj is a graphic designer specializing in static, motion and interactive work. He created this wallpaper for Dead Astronauts – an electronic duo comprised of Seattle-based Jared Nickerson and Toronto-based Hayley Stewart. Like TFIB, Dead Astronaut have their own Desktop Wallpaper Project featuring various graphic designers and contributors from around the globe.
