High-Level Project Summary
Our aim is to encourage NASA to engage with different communities and inspire the development of parody songs and skits that, nevertheless, tell the stories that NASA want to tell. Telling stories through song is an ancient and global tradition, though rarely something used for communicating science. Songs growing up from the grass roots will be better connected with local context, community and culture. By adding their imprimatur, NASA can reward and endorse local talent and enable re-telling of space stories they believe in.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Our aim is to use humour and comedic parody songs (to show the event) and skits (to create the connection between the character and the audience) to tell small/short stories about people or aspects of the space programme (European/USA/Australian) – akin to the UK TV show "Horrible Histories".
All songs and performers come from a particular cultural context. Horrible Histories, for example, use popular modern western song forms as a basis. NASA's collection would include other forms such as blues, folk, dance music, reggae, gospel, salsa, Bengali folk, Bollywood, hip hop, afrobeat, Benga, etc. The song is representational of the event – the principal work is cross cultural. You therefore borrow the recognisable melody, but overlay it with a different story (change the libretto). The activity is, in effect, independent of language and context.
The aim is to curate a collection of inspiring, short, catchy songs that describes the designs, processes, or scientific results from any NASA or partnered space agency scientific mission or research effort.
NASA will need to engage with various, worldwide communities to promote the creation of parody songs that tell a NASA story. NASA will set ground rules such as no swearing or factually/scientifically correct. Once the community is engaged, NASA will "like" and link-to songs that meet their objectives.
Space Agency Data
Nothing yet, but happy to work on another song for you!
Hackathon Journey
A family endeavour. A key aspect was to find a challenge that everyone could meaningfully contribute too. There were many science projects that Dad would have enjoyed, but would not have been engaging for the rest of the gang.
It was a great way to spend the weekend, and the setting at University of Western Australia allowed plenty of time for fresh air and sunshine to recharge between sessions. We hope to see you all again soon.
References
Various licensed images have been used in the presentation. Licences to use these images have been acquired from iStockPhoto.
Tags
#STEAM #Story #Song