Welcome to MOMA

Art in the Sky

"Art in the Sky" is a non-commercial community arts project that explores the intersections between fantasy, reality and the digital realm: exploration occurs through arts participation and game playing around the themes of aviation, museums and art-making. You can get involved right now by simply creating an account here, then you can contribute to this wiki as you explore it. You may find other players, participants & collaborators currently online at our Discord server (where you can chat in real time, share screens and have voice/video calls if you like).

The Museum of Moving Art (MOMA)

THE POWER OF PATONGA: Art, Propaganda & Otherness is an essay by David Rose exploring the challenges presented by issues such as racism, colonisation and cultural appropriation in an international narrative-driven creative project like MOMA. To read the essay please click on the image above

MOMA is a composite artwork (an artwork comprised of other artworks) that is being created by founding artist David Freedom Rose in collaboration with other artists, participants & players in the Art in the Sky project - essentially MOMA is the output (or if you like the creative outcome) of this project of projects.

MOMA is sometimes ethereal, existing in the imagination of players and visitors, being in many places and existing in more than one place at a time. It takes form in the physical world as an expansive and evolving mesh of performance & visual art, pop-up spaces, story-telling, inter-connected role playing games (RPGs) and physical table-top games. It also manifests on device screens as interactive video games and this wiki.

Place-holder graphic non-commercially appropriated from the Disney Corporation

Community Arts Participation

Level 3 - David playing Loretta Monetta with Jack & Danousha at TAFE

Having fun, socializing and being creative helps to keep individuals healthy and communities strong.

A major goal of the project is to facilitate face-to-face social interaction by using digital technology to bring people together for safe, creative and rewarding social experiences. We are not against computer gaming - far from it - we are though concerned with the escalating growth of digital media addiction and its attendant social isolation in the virtual. The recent global pandemic has highlighted the need to address the importance of psychosocial health as a key determinant in the health of individuals and the societies in which they live. We know that by playing and being creative, humanity thrives!

Art and artists always have important roles in communities and in societies, especially in times of crisis. The educated artist understands that "personal is political"; therefore accessibility, inclusiveness and diversity are key elements influencing game and project design here.

A straight-friendly Queer Space

One of the main design goals of the Get Off to Some Flying Art project, is to create a straight-friendly Queer Space in the international aviation community. This does not mean that the whole project is a Queer project, nor does it mean that there is to be any push towards exclusion. It is natural for any minority within a dominant society to seek out their own and find places within the whole where - for that time and place - they are not the minority; and where they are not subject to the often subconscious oppression of the dominant society. It is a great honour for an "other" to be invited into these safe community spaces, and if you have been invited, it means you have been given some trust that you will be respectful and careful.

Pacifica Communities Cultural Consultation

In developing this project David Rose (the founding artist) has sought and encouraged the participation of Pacific Islander communities and individuals in the design and development of this project. If you are of Islander heritage and wish to take a leading role, please feel free to create content at this wiki and in the Discord platform. Contact David Rose, he will be happy to help you get started.

The Island of Patonga

Museum of Moving Art (MOMA) exists in a story world, and in this world there is actually a beautiful museum built into a cliff face on the Island of Patonga in the South Pacific. Patonga is a special island with a unique history and culture. It has developed a booming economy based on organic agriculture, international tourism, aviation and education. The Patongans have done this by maintaining traditional values, promoting personal & national sovereignty and resisting colonisation. How this came to be might be one of the many stories that unfold, along with adventures, wins, loves, losses and much much more.

Flying Art: a table-top Game

Amelia Earhardt: pioneering aviator - a real source of inspiration.

A physical table-top board game called Flying Art is well into development with a prototype expected to be play tested in the coming months. Check out the Game Development Document (GDD) here.

The more you play, the deeper you go... you might for example find out how famous aviator Amelia Earhardt found her way into the MOMA story world, and how she is honoured on the Island of Patonga.

MSFS 2020 Addon: Research & Development

Currently good progress is being made researching the possibility of utilizing the dramatic and cinematic potential of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 as a way of playing in the MOMA story world. It looks very promising! So far we have determined that some of the preliminary design ideas are indeed feasible (if not ambitious): a fictitious island integrated into the sim and interactive cabin animations involving flight attendants & passengers.

How do you play?

You don't have to be an artist to play at MOMA, but if you want to, you can have fun pretending.

Entry level games allow new players to have fun exploring a variety of roles, activities and story-lines (hint: the easiest role is Museum Visitor - you're doing it already). In more advanced levels of the physical stream (in real life), gameplay is directed to the creation and placement of pop-up installations and structures which have the capacity to move. This is co-ordinated by some players acting as curators and involves face-to-face interaction and outreach to artists in local communities.

Digital art is also being created, curated and exhibited here at this wiki and on the personal devices of participants in the Art in the Sky project.

Stories created in the physical games can be played out in the digital realm, manifesting as gameplay in open world simulation games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (via the use of addons & mods created here at MOMA). The opposite is also true, narratives created in the digital realm can find their way into the physical stream manifesting as street theatre, physical artworks or as gameplay in table-top games.

To start playing now, create an account here and begin by exploring the links on the left. You may find other players currently online at our Discord server.

Coming Soon: take the Random Image challenge

Replace that blank canvas!

Work-in-progress on this idea....

Would you like to have your image on that wall on the welcome page of MOMA?

Can you use layers, crop and re-size in Photoshop, GIMP or some other image editing app?

Watch this space. A simple wiki art challenge coming soon ;-)

We need Faces!

Here's a simple graphic arts challenge to create and upload an image to be part of the Flying Art table-top game. The Gameplay Sheets in Level 1 need a varied selection of "passport photos"; part of the gameplay involves players creating a character to go with the "photo". Because it is an art game and supposed to be fun, they don't actually have to be proper photographic images, they just need to be portraits of faces (they could be collage, drawings, paintings, digital art - framed in the style of a passport mug shot). If you would like to contribute a selfie or some other "passport photo" creation, simply login and select Upload file from the Tools menu in the left sidebar. (Please put _Passport_Level_1 in the title of the File in your upload window.)