Gabo, Diaghilev and Olga Spessivtseva: The Governance of Shipping and Outer Space

This chapter places the consideration of the wider governance of the terrestrially defined maritime sector (including shipping, ports and ancillary commercial, political and administrative activities) and that of extra-terrestrially defined outer space (including spacecraft, satellites, planets, asteroids and more) in their widest contexts. Space and time are seen as the central issues that direct both sectors and are considered in their widest sense including detailed discussion of constructivism and the contributions from sculpture, costume, architecture, ballet, theatre design and their political characteristics, and how these can help to define and characterise the limits to governance. In so doing the traditional constraints imposed upon the discussion of governance both in the maritime and outer space contexts are lifted so that the wider considerations can be appreciated in the design of an improved approach and not one commonly constricted largely to ownership and the role of the state. Examples are derived from a range of Constructivist artists including Gabo and Pevsner, Rodchenko, Stepanova, Schwitters, Moholy-Nagy and Ginzburg which reflect some of the broader dimensions to governance that have been and continue to be neglected by commentators from both sectors.