tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58366209729395768002024-03-26T19:51:11.795+00:00John StocktonJohn Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-20894004726987763272024-01-31T19:02:00.002+00:002024-02-02T10:33:30.531+00:00Scans<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuijBUHOFuAPyygexr_Z8AWN6TmhhrCvKexEq1Qg6ftIC3DrjNas02mKkw8w3ng5NDqdpTd11n4CWlP9iKYEu40vgq__PIXdc2m-YfEzRZ1wWeUDuLsJXGvd4VxZxjURBQ0jwquwvyaHrHUBUEEXuLaiAK_wBOkjtan1_DpAZIT5VkrxUVJu1ZnH_y/s3660/W%20crop.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2832" data-original-width="3660" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuijBUHOFuAPyygexr_Z8AWN6TmhhrCvKexEq1Qg6ftIC3DrjNas02mKkw8w3ng5NDqdpTd11n4CWlP9iKYEu40vgq__PIXdc2m-YfEzRZ1wWeUDuLsJXGvd4VxZxjURBQ0jwquwvyaHrHUBUEEXuLaiAK_wBOkjtan1_DpAZIT5VkrxUVJu1ZnH_y/s320/W%20crop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>or of any other past culture. Each age find its own technique." </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Jackson Polloc</span><span style="font-size: small;">k</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/11892966-scans"><span style="color: red;">Link to SCANS book on blurb.</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Art
has seen as much experimentation in the last 150 years as the previous 1500
years. This accelerated rate of change occurred in a period of increased
scientific knowledge of nature and parallel social developments. The style of
figurative realism that emerged in the Renaissance was challenged by the
rebellious era of modern art that started at the Salon des Refusés exhibition in Paris in 1863. During the 20th century three methods of image making: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogram" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">photograms</span></a>, holography and flat-bed scanners, provide insights into the values of modern art. Although recording images without a camera lens,
they all share a similarity to photography. As well as recording objects, they
subtly transform their appearance, in different ways that are unique to each
method.</span></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8mcwuJvF_jY0ylyX2OQCi7qE6rSHTRJJQgXfysjsD8BEaZdOy-cVzKFdGUuJSc9le2vx9kgASkK6dtR7BWNjnIjLwST3Ay_bNjXiSdQ6JlEmJ6ICDug49Bz8SBZaDrkg-fwkK-Fkqiadj4NJuFlkGlM2HXQ_cuOSCNPCr2wIIYayP15JCb220njwS/s4166/Photogram%20Moholy-Nagy%20Page77%20copy.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4166" data-original-width="3079" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8mcwuJvF_jY0ylyX2OQCi7qE6rSHTRJJQgXfysjsD8BEaZdOy-cVzKFdGUuJSc9le2vx9kgASkK6dtR7BWNjnIjLwST3Ay_bNjXiSdQ6JlEmJ6ICDug49Bz8SBZaDrkg-fwkK-Fkqiadj4NJuFlkGlM2HXQ_cuOSCNPCr2wIIYayP15JCb220njwS/w148-h200/Photogram%20Moholy-Nagy%20Page77%20copy.jpg" width="148" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Photogram by Man Ray</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">published in <i>Painting </i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Photography </span></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Film </span></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">(page 77)</span></b></div></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photograms
are cameraless photographs created by placing objects directly onto a
light-sensitive surface, usually photographic paper, and exposing the
composition to light. Unless reversed by copying, photograms are negatives
where exposure to light creates darkness. Because a camera lens is not used,
images of objects placed on the film or photographic paper are recorded same
size. Photograms are as uncanny as images on a pre-digital radar scope, with
potentially recognisable white silhouettes emerging from a dark ground.
Photograms are the opposite of picturesque. The brooding darkness of their
backgrounds suggests a form of 'technological sublime' <strong>(1)</strong> that is even more
explicit in x-ray pictures.</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photograms
have an ambiguous relationship to the cannon of 'serious' photography as they
were often used as an introductory exercise for those learning chemistry-based
photography. They were the photographic equivalent of learning scales on a
piano, with visible tones instead of musical notes, but they also became
associated with modern art. Whereas cameras have been designed to imitate the
type of perspective associated with Renaissance painting, the
distinctive effects made by photograms aligned with the modernist principle of
being "truthful to materials" and the older adage <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">"form follows function"</span></a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyone who has
seen an Anglepoise lamp has experienced these ideas made solid. The car
designer George Carwardine invented the iconic desk lamp after researching car
suspension systems, creating a functional task lamp that was also attractive in
the terms of the Bauhaus-inspired ‘machine aesthetic'. Just as the Anglepoise
lamp has a stark beauty arising from the expression of mechanical levers and
springs, so a photogram is a rather severe image created by the ability of a
photographic emulsion to record the beguiling effects of light passing through
translucent objects and around the edges of solids but without the more
traditionally pleasing effects of chiaroscuro associated with photographs made
with a lens. Objects registered as white shadows are uncanny.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">László
Moholy-Nagy included photograms made by himself, and the American photographer
Man Ray, in his influential book <i>Painting Photography Film</i> published in
1925 <b>(2)</b> in which he postulated an aesthetic and philosophical revolution
called "The New Vision" that would unleash the creative potential of
society. He described photograms as "<i>light</i> <i>composition</i>, in
which light must be sovereignly handled <b>as a</b> <b>new creative means</b>,
like colour in paintings and sound in music." Light could create "a
new kinetic space-time rendering". <b>(3)</b> Moholy-Nagy derided the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">"Ruskin-Morris circle"</span></a> who he accused of ignoring the need to harness
machine production to meet the 'biological' needs of society. The New Vision was to be based on technology.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="490" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy9iUhPTHFm2N8dbtibsaGH4uYIQPDkzBPGo8lAVxzM7mqgllt9i5rWL2t2k1jHI_JdjNAt8Sso8j6erN0VdPW-Rcq3w-TUbP5beSqrXZh54yqn1tiVf8LqBN5lr02zEEWOo8HTHSIRo67U2giiGAOX3-OuOCT8ahi1_JA0xXKSjlmC2d2UC1oxxDR/w184-h200/Edington%20May%201919_eclipse_positive.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="184" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>Solar eclipse on 29th May </b><b>1919 </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>photographed by </b><b>Arthur </b><span style="text-align: center;"><b>Eddington</b></span><b>. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>The observed </b><b>deflection of </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>starlight by </b><b>gravity </b><b>confirmed </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>Einstein's </b><b>theory of </b><b>relativity</b><b> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>and </b><b>was </b><b>reported </b><b>enthusiastically </b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b>worldwide.</b></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Moholy-Nagy
speculated that novel optical systems such as prismatic lenses and cameras able
to view objects from multiple positions could surpass cubist painting, but new
forms of sculpture would acknowledge Einstein's theory of relativity.
Whereas the pictures of Futurism showed a superimposition of the object in a
sequence of linear movement and Cubism rendered the object as if it were
rotated in space, Moholy-Nagy wanted to 'paint' with "flowing,
oscillating, prismatic light, in lieu of pigments" to "allow us a
better approach to the new conception of space-time." <b>(4)</b> He made
light/kinetic sculptures for the 1936 film <a href="https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150307523" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: red;">Things to Come</span></i></a>, although they
were eventually not included in the finished production.</div></span><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">A complete
'phase transition' of society suggested by the concept of <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/new-vision" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The New Vision</span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i> </i><b>(5)
</b><span face="Arial, sans-serif">never happened, but in 1949 a photographic process capable of exploring
Moholy-Nagy's fascination with space/time was proposed. The physicist and
engineer Dennis Gabor calculated that combining light reflected from an object
with light sent directly to a photographic emulsion would create interference
patterns from which a fully three-dimensional image, a<span style="color: red;"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">hologram</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif">, could be
reconstructed.</span></span></p><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Older methods of stereoscopic photography</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1XQxGLne-ZiHfmfDyarwTH5oMJNAGCIf0SyjxLj30nfqJ-Pa2VEv2UsQvDRzisZBWldkYaJDK3MlIM09_0ijmFw_URgp_DxqkQk4ug1PR-N_NhnS0lxSDk_qq_phaQk1e47xoyzQGadAVKLuSY1BVOjHWKulYeS4QCCmbDGuXmDk5sgjwByKYUZaN/s4335/Benyon%20Holography.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4335" data-original-width="3296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1XQxGLne-ZiHfmfDyarwTH5oMJNAGCIf0SyjxLj30nfqJ-Pa2VEv2UsQvDRzisZBWldkYaJDK3MlIM09_0ijmFw_URgp_DxqkQk4ug1PR-N_NhnS0lxSDk_qq_phaQk1e47xoyzQGadAVKLuSY1BVOjHWKulYeS4QCCmbDGuXmDk5sgjwByKYUZaN/w243-h320/Benyon%20Holography.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Moholy-Nagy would have been fascinated</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">by holography. In <i>The New Vision - </i></span></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i>Abstract of an Artist</i> he </b><b>wrote about </b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>neoplasticism and how </b><b>constructivist artists </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>had sprayed very thin, iridescent layers of</b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>paint </b><b>on polished </b><b>surfaces, metals and</b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>synthetic </b></span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">materials "..to which the reflecting</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>layer underneath gives an ethereal fluctuating</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>appearance..,.The surface becomes a part of</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>the atmosphere, of the atmospheric background;</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>it sucks up light phenomena produced outside</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>itself...." (Page 39) His description sounds rather</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>like the experience</b></span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> of</span></b><b style="font-size: small;"> </b><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">viewing a hologram</span></b><b style="font-size: small;">.</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span>create the impression
of depth but lack a sense of the roundness of objects. Confusingly, both
stereoscopy and holography are often referred to as "3D" pictures.
For holography to work it is necessary to use light of a single wavelength
which was not fully available until the invention of the laser.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> After the
first laser-based hologram was made in 1964 the medium's status as an art form
was </span>questioned. The invention of photography between 1825 and 1850 was followed
by a similar period of speculation as to whether it could be considered art.
For critics in the 20th century the issue of photography was resolved by
modernism which valued characteristics that are unique to specific media. For
painting, the qualities of flatness and colour were regarded as essential
modernist qualities. Paradoxically, the mechanical aspects of photography (as
opposed to eye/hand skills) that caused art critics to doubt that it was an art
form in the 19th Century allowed the medium to claim a special position within
modernism.</div></span><p></p><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Surrealism and abstraction were important developments in modernism but the ability of photography to record images outside human imagination was equally significant. Both the blurring of objects caused by motion in long
exposures and the ultra-sharpness of high-speed photography exceed human
perception. Similarly, holography initially only seemed to be a kind of
photographic sculpture, but at the University of Nottingham the 1970s <a href="http://www.art-in-holography.org/papers/benyon.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Margaret Benyon</span></a> undertook a fellowship in fine art in the mechanical engineering
department </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-align: center;">where she was able to establish a holography studio and explore a unique
feature of the medium.</span></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmw0ijvUzxAxQmXUKGU05i-6W8nhXXeEtHWaD7VaGT9lY8HmK0pN8R8TrhZsu2KjWs0EmxKt18eRj6ZxgfK2GZG0FLEdr-ePrkz2AdvKJvHHhHN5Fm_mFVwJnukCFaD6NhngjaIAPtEJMZFIS6tRX1mj1fKk4f8zQOFTV7Vq4jUffxc8wxm5HD1ku/s235/Benyon.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="187" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmw0ijvUzxAxQmXUKGU05i-6W8nhXXeEtHWaD7VaGT9lY8HmK0pN8R8TrhZsu2KjWs0EmxKt18eRj6ZxgfK2GZG0FLEdr-ePrkz2AdvKJvHHhHN5Fm_mFVwJnukCFaD6NhngjaIAPtEJMZFIS6tRX1mj1fKk4f8zQOFTV7Vq4jUffxc8wxm5HD1ku/s1600/Benyon.jpg" width="187" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Margaret Benyon's 'hot air' hologram.</b><br /><b>Column of rising air appears dark and</b><br /><b>flat among rounded objects.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"></span></span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">To make a
successful hologram, the photographic emulsion must receive light directly from
a </span><span>laser as well as light reflected from the objects being recorded. As the
interference pattern created in the emulsion is a very precise record of the
interaction of the wavefront from the laser and the wavefront modified by the
shapes of objects, nothing in the arrangement should </span></span><span>move by more than a
fraction of the wavelength of the light in use. Benyon discovered that movement
as slight as the drying of bread would cause a loaf to appear as a flat, dark
silhouette. Experiments confirmed that holograms can register time as well as
three dimensions in a single image, as Moholy-Nagy desired half a century
earlier. Benyon's most intriguing images recorded the movement of hot air from
a cup as flat, dark plumes. Time compresses three dimensions into two. </span><b>(6)</b></span></span></div><p></p><p></p><p></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Holography
made little impact on the art world, either in the exclusive collectors' art
market or the more socially orientated public art sector. Perhaps the
exploitation of the ability to register tiny movements of objects as
'non-holograms' was one of the last throws of the dice for modernism. Many of
the creative techniques of modernist photography can be thought of as qualified
failures in that they are departures from the norms of Renaissance art.
Blurring caused by motion, depth of field rendering backgrounds out of focus,
the compression of </span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;">perspective by telephoto lenses and the near spherical
perspective of fish-eye lenses are all photographic tropes that make a virtue
out of the unconventional. Depiction of movement as a black silhouette in an otherwise
three- dimensional field is a uniquely holographic, and modernist,
characteristic.</span></p><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio792GuOf4iY31iMCvaZNYfMdDLdeRrFvAup2dIQqh_cDibdjI2fZQhUfaoieEUjn2hNAPhvO2fAVqPXnvjSPZAKDj0dFhQBwmoRGP3nE2ejnO_nU8yCtirRsRfXhF8T4M0inWjdlZCekMyxBY_uoWLiU_on1KvNOvnYxMbpnVgDQ2PhaIS8OFG_pp/s6441/Benyon%20Hot%20Air%20set%20up.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="6441" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio792GuOf4iY31iMCvaZNYfMdDLdeRrFvAup2dIQqh_cDibdjI2fZQhUfaoieEUjn2hNAPhvO2fAVqPXnvjSPZAKDj0dFhQBwmoRGP3nE2ejnO_nU8yCtirRsRfXhF8T4M0inWjdlZCekMyxBY_uoWLiU_on1KvNOvnYxMbpnVgDQ2PhaIS8OFG_pp/s320/Benyon%20Hot%20Air%20set%20up.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The set up for Margaret Benyon's hot air hologram.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
expectation that artists should use </span>characteristics that are unique to
the nature of a particular medium, creating artwork that is as much an
expression of its physical properties as any subject, has not spread to popular
culture. From the earliest days of cinema, painted backdrops were a common
feature of filmed illusions. A current trend is towards the increasing use of
computer-generated images in films. Additionally, postmodernism has produced an
'anything goes' culture which influences all media. For artists there is the
challenge of deciding what not to include or generate, so great are the
possibilities afforded by digital technology.</span></div><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">Flatbed scanners are associated with digital editing of images and postmodern expectations. For anyone wanting to
scan a photograph the software that enables the scanner to operate with a
computer presents a preview image and offers the user an opportunity to adjust
brightness, contrast and colour before the subsequent image is created. Further
digital manipulation can contribute to the elision between photography and
illustration, where any departure from visual accuracy is accepted if it is
made with sincere and obvious intention. Maps and pictures made for manuals or
textbooks are expected to dispense with surplus detail for the sake of clarity.
Similarly, the routine surveillance of the Earth by satellites is increasingly
undertaken by thematic mapping projects that concentrate of specific
geophysical information such as ice-cover or vegetation types. The Earth
rotates under them as they orbit from pole to pole, rather like the action of a
flatbed scanner.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Scanners use
LEDs for illumination combined with multiple detectors arranged together on a
single moving bar that sweeps the underside of a glass platen on which
documents or objects can be placed. Scanners were not designed to record
objects, so their traveling perspective produces distortions caused by parallel
projections in the resultant image. Depth of field is about one centimetre and
unreflected light creates dark backgrounds. The darkness is similar to 'flash
falloff' seen in photographs taken by the light of an electronic flashgun.
Photograms, holography and scanners record distance as darkness because they
project light in a dynamic way without relying on ambient illumination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">Unlike human
vision, the photogram process, holograms and scanners bombard their subjects
with photons. The phrase "suffocating darkness" is revealing because
light feels like it belongs to the air that we breathe. Looking up at a blue
sky, there is no apparent difference between atmosphere and light. When a cloud
uncovers the sun, light enters a room like fine dust falling from the air. The
disparity between the searchlight of technology and how we see, influences how
our attention to nature becomes divided between science and art. 1970s Land Art
(originally called Earth Art) came close to reconciling this difference.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_art" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Land Art</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> projects, mostly in remote areas of the United States, were <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4kHrrbJOT1kfa3_SZg_7tF7XiYdmfzNICBtxapmDD0dqYfxHHp3iO5HnS01U4TCU9ggQuw_0xQ57wewKyTjli9vI_dZASNIeBfQqF_il89SGANaS2kA22E7qVOOdLY8NZ78M0pyjyM5zwox25PHI8Fjx6b3zYyAG4P-Td3sap-xTFxFZZCCDSo1P/s671/Double%20Negative.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="671" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4kHrrbJOT1kfa3_SZg_7tF7XiYdmfzNICBtxapmDD0dqYfxHHp3iO5HnS01U4TCU9ggQuw_0xQ57wewKyTjli9vI_dZASNIeBfQqF_il89SGANaS2kA22E7qVOOdLY8NZ78M0pyjyM5zwox25PHI8Fjx6b3zYyAG4P-Td3sap-xTFxFZZCCDSo1P/w200-h134/Double%20Negative.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Negative_(artwork)" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: red;">Double Negative</span></i></a> was excavated by Michael </b><br /><b>Heizer in 1969. 240,000 tons of rock was</b><br /><b>bulldozed from two sides of a valley wall.</b><br /><b>The sculpture is a void that demonstrates</b><br /><b>the imposition of geometry on the<br />landscape,</b><b>and by implication, the whole <br />of nature.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">created in the 1960s and 1970s. The Earth artists individually embarked on a
series of diverse sculptural projects, on the scale of civil engineering,
using the material of the landscape itself. One of Robert Smithson's early
works exhibited mirrors, rock, gravel and sand in an art gallery. The materials
were removed from a distant site where mirrors had also been placed and
photographed. The methodology resembled a museum exhibit that had resulted from
geology fieldwork. Walter De Maria's </span><a href="https://diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/walter-de-maria-the-lightning-field" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: red;">Lightning Field</span></i></a><i><span style="color: red;"> </span>(</i><span face="Arial, sans-serif">1977</span><i>)</i><span face="Arial, sans-serif">
almost functions as a science experiment. At a high-altitude site in New Mexico
in the United States, De Maria created a one kilometre by one mile array of
polished metal poles placed vertically in the ground 67 metres apart. Lightning
is said to "sense" the poles when it is within 61 metres of them. </span><b>(7)</b></span></div><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">Land Art seems to have signified an end to the development of landscape art, but it is possible to consider a return of nature to a central position in contemporary art. Imagine a Venn diagram with nature in art at the centre, surrounded by four circles. Firstly, nature that is revealed by science. Secondly, the tradition of landscape art that represents nature as beautiful, sublime or picturesque. Thirdly, climate change, a new mass extinction period and the expansion of the <a href="https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/unbearable-burden-technosphere" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">technosphere</span></a> (the built environment, mining spoil, farming, solar power collectors etc). Fourthly, ambitious plans such as altering plant genomes to enable them to use more atmospheric carbon dioxide, producing 'meat' protein in bioreactors and the duplication of the energy of the sun in thermonuclear power stations. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA_0oD4YblyBMmWE-lNK98q4Vm1QceI3sF_l8OA8k4_x9wnU4rkL8jtACeJ7Gi2ZO4e0qBtiZfw1XxwIX_pOJ7gjJxfpLtTYSgwYf0VJC5DSI8YITxzCf2cdQzVEtfXF_W5Gzv5Ghzi0qpZWZyjNVL9LWa8BsmDig01XS5mrLbjNP4Lr2yHYd1aI8b/s4724/Anthropocene%20UTOPIA%209%20TEXT.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="1323" data-original-width="4724" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA_0oD4YblyBMmWE-lNK98q4Vm1QceI3sF_l8OA8k4_x9wnU4rkL8jtACeJ7Gi2ZO4e0qBtiZfw1XxwIX_pOJ7gjJxfpLtTYSgwYf0VJC5DSI8YITxzCf2cdQzVEtfXF_W5Gzv5Ghzi0qpZWZyjNVL9LWa8BsmDig01XS5mrLbjNP4Lr2yHYd1aI8b/w640-h181/Anthropocene%20UTOPIA%209%20TEXT.jpg" width="640" /></b></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /><b>(1) Strip mining (2) Contour ploughing (3) The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai - 5.6 square kilometre land reclamation development. <br /><br />The expansion of human activity to encompass the majority of the Earth has supported a massive increase in population. This means that there is no simple way back to a pre-industrial world that existed before the </b><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68107545" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Anthropocene</span></a>. <b>Behind the concept of 'sustainability' lie complicated choices around the degree of artificial management of biological and Earth systems. </b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvgG-pxlobk" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Anthropocene</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> epoch is so called because humans are now a geological force. We cause global climate change, move more material than river erosion, control three quarters of land not under ice and are also influencing the course of evolution. The image of a self-consistent nature depicted in traditional landscape art is not true in the Anthropocene. Some of the Land Art projects of the last century presaged this new situation. A new direction for art as metaphor for the complicated and problematic interface between nature and technology in the 21st century is available. Rather than attempting to create visual equivalents to the complexity of all environmental issues art could be a sensitised surface that provides opportunities for contemplation of artificiality itself.</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcz2E3Pf2wkk0XtfqqGh5b0r54qZLFgNUqejapgcCqJKl3krpQAm4Dt2id0truGkECrePmZba4GDVfkfCLdJOzFgU-z1LEQjIAjJDPMxvHHSWbWUeWdg75adFPsB7i29XDxr9PoeMjAhqjgW4Ea-7Abi4Ma1IDlz8EMdAOhfhrJN3NdRa-Xd8MVmKn/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1979_517-001.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="800" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcz2E3Pf2wkk0XtfqqGh5b0r54qZLFgNUqejapgcCqJKl3krpQAm4Dt2id0truGkECrePmZba4GDVfkfCLdJOzFgU-z1LEQjIAjJDPMxvHHSWbWUeWdg75adFPsB7i29XDxr9PoeMjAhqjgW4Ea-7Abi4Ma1IDlz8EMdAOhfhrJN3NdRa-Xd8MVmKn/s320/GMIII_MCAG_1979_517-001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start;"><i>Wooded Landscape with Figures Walking by a </i></b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start;"><i>Sandy </i></b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start;"><i>Bank. </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">This painting by Jan Wijnants </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">(active 1643 - 1684) </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">shows </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">the </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">remains of an </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">original </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">coastline resulting </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">from the </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #292929; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>reclamation </b></span></span><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">of land </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">from </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">the sea</b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;"> in Holland. </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">This</b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;"> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">picturesque </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">depiction of one aspect of the </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">technosphere </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">may appear to be </b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: center;">anachronistic, but the type of cultivated </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">landscape </span></b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">familiar </span></b><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">from landscape painting is equally </span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="color: #292929; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">artificial.</span></b></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">(1)</span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Nye, David E. <em>American
Technological Sublime</em>. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 7.5pt;"></span><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">(2) (3) (4</span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">) </span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #3a3a3a;">Moholy-Nagy,
László, Hans Maria. Wingler, and Janet. Seligman. <em>Painting, Photography, Film</em>. London: Lund
Humphries, 1967.</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">(5) </span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Moholy-Nagy, László <em>The
New Vision ; and, Abstract of an Artist</em>. New York: Wittenborn,
1947. </span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">(6</span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">) Benthall, Jonathan. <em>Science
and Technology in Art Today</em>. London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. </span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="align-left" style="text-align: left;"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">(7</span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">) Kastner, Jeffrey., and Brian. Wallis. <em>Land and Environmental Art : Themes and
Movements</em>. London: Phaidon, 1998.Page 109.</span></p></div><div> <p></p></div><div><a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/11892966-scans" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Link to SCANS book on blurb</span></a><br /></div>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-13260793617739974772023-11-28T10:16:00.000+00:002023-11-28T10:16:08.690+00:00The Best Photograph I Never Took.<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It was probably 1975, or it
could have been early 1976. It was probably a Saturday. I was in Stockport
walking down Wellington Road South towards the square. I had a camera loaded
with black and white film. I was looking for scenes to photograph. A </span><i><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">flâneur </span></i><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">with a machine for
seeing.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">By coincidence, there was a
bride and bridegroom walking up the hill in the opposite direction. They looked
as if they had just got married and were heading towards a reception. The bride
wore a white dress and the groom a dark suit. I don’t know how they came to be
walking there, but behind them a line of disused a coal-staithes extended from
the station and stopped short of the main road. These Victorian brick
structures were coated in coal dust and the contrast with the bride’s white
wedding dress was marked. I thought of taking a photograph, hesitated, and then
the moment was lost.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">They passed me and carried on
up the hill. Even today I think that if I had taken a picture, it could have
been one of my ‘best’. The scene was redolent of northern industry. The coal
staithes had been built to allow railway wagons to empty their loads into horse-drawn
wagons beneath them. They connoted industrialisation, and a huge northern
heritage now lost to globalisation. The nearby christie's hat works is now a
museum. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The couple were roughly my
age. How have they fared in the post-industrial 21<sup>st</sup> century? Perhaps
he has spent the last twenty years driving around as a ‘white-van man’ and
perhaps she works in an office looking at spreadsheets on a computer screen.
Factory work was never all that great anyway. Regardless of these clichés, the
non-existent photograph of their newly married selves would have gained curiosity
value over the years. The coal-staithes would now appear quite archaic and the
choice of walking away from a wedding might be seen as prosaic. The staithes were
demolished in the 1990s and replaced by a Mc Donald’s. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It is no use regretting the
lost opportunity. To get the ‘right’ view I would have needed a telephoto lens,
not to avoid confronting the couple, but to change the perspective so that the
coal staithes loomed in the background. You have probably seen this compressed
perspective effect in numerous <i>National Geographic</i> features. Huge moon
setting behind the Eiffel Tower. Huge moon setting behind the Taj Mahal. Huge moon
setting behind an oil derrick in the Gulf of Mexico. Huge moon setting behind a
launch-gantry at Cape Kennedy. You get the idea. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">If I had taken the photograph
with a telephoto lens, what would the picture have looked like? I imagine that
the scene would have been a medium close-up of the couple and the coal-dust encrusted
brickwork of the staithes would have largely filled the background. I think
that a gust of wind blew the bride’s veil up into the air for a moment, its pristine
cleanliness contrasting with the century of grime behind her. Perhaps they
would have been looking at each other. Perhaps one of them would have looked at
something outside the frame as if contemplating the future. The image could
have been read that way, even though he or she might just as easily have been watching
a relative cross the road. Some of the most iconic photographs are successful because
they invite us to read things into them that are not really there. To get a
range of glances and expressions I would have needed a Nikon motor-drive camera
to take multiple frames in a few seconds. In those days I didn’t even know such
a thing existed. It would have cost more than my motorcycle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The image could have been a
minor classic, or not. To believe that such a picture could say anything
meaningful about the lives of the people in is to believe in a tradition of
documentary photography that seeks to explain life from within 24mm x 36mm
frames and instances of 125<sup>th</sup> of a second. We partly live our lives
through metaphors and the young couple were starting their new lives by literally
walking away from their industrial background. The documentary tradition of
photography excuses its temporary intrusion in the subject’s time and space by
a faintly unctuous appeal to our sense of pathos. Out of the millions of
photographs that have been taken a few have come to symbolise things that we
care about, even if the people depicted in them are treated as cyphers. We have
become used to the industrialisation of our perception but to take a ‘meaningful’
photograph, within the ethos of documentary photography, is rather like
wandering round a field of randomly scattered words until a sentence can be
read in a line that is seen from one position. We might feel pride in having
the wit and perseverance to find that ideal place, but the ‘heroism of vision’
is probably just vanity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-1410920890191548282023-01-01T19:13:00.002+00:002023-01-02T16:19:52.950+00:00Ideas of Nature<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuXaN4XY_5LfCf409i-GsFGhfCK0hIOypz9Ku5zXng2JozwP5JLtci1bLQwRxH4gF_BB4M_rPceFVFiBr9vc57z5xgPrzAW-i039pHw17ONWAV-10abDj1s9ptJfx9Pll-iD-W_2WEqH1fC7KckF3mInR8P93DuIzCP3bHqO1SVIXcN3DljDnnPw/s1212/Utopias%20-%2011%20COVER%20spread.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="1212" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuXaN4XY_5LfCf409i-GsFGhfCK0hIOypz9Ku5zXng2JozwP5JLtci1bLQwRxH4gF_BB4M_rPceFVFiBr9vc57z5xgPrzAW-i039pHw17ONWAV-10abDj1s9ptJfx9Pll-iD-W_2WEqH1fC7KckF3mInR8P93DuIzCP3bHqO1SVIXcN3DljDnnPw/w400-h159/Utopias%20-%2011%20COVER%20spread.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="Utopias 11" target="_blank">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11320118-utopias-11</a><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">deas of Nature</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"></p><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxFA_HlIBt6_pxjzJ45KywLQ_BJBgTOJHk7xldu9ude4lgKrrUZSJ9HMYVs_8-XY6IKB27t9YLlHIbs65Tbe3mUkqyfpCuWNjbE4b-hI3Ebfk7subTqpLIx29IifczkdHgrUG9fo5qjFRUX4geWUoHQ2609n2mycREYEjuURSI9-JfNXO9InEYQ/s1171/Trevalgan%201951%20Peter%20Lanyon.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1171" data-original-width="1074" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxFA_HlIBt6_pxjzJ45KywLQ_BJBgTOJHk7xldu9ude4lgKrrUZSJ9HMYVs_8-XY6IKB27t9YLlHIbs65Tbe3mUkqyfpCuWNjbE4b-hI3Ebfk7subTqpLIx29IifczkdHgrUG9fo5qjFRUX4geWUoHQ2609n2mycREYEjuURSI9-JfNXO9InEYQ/w183-h200/Trevalgan%201951%20Peter%20Lanyon.jpg" width="183" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Travalgen</i>, 1951 Peter Lanyon</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">From 1948 until his death after a gliding accident in 1964, Peter Lanyon created paintings <span style="text-align: left;">which attempt to combine the abstract practice of modern art with the history and geology of Cornish landscapes. Contemporary painters such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko created pictures without perspective but Lanyon's paintings struggle to contain both the transcendence of surface appearance associated with abstraction and an impression of the physicality of actual landscapes. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Modernism</span></a> superseded the distinction between form and content but Lanyon's paintings are like medieval maps that contemplate the essence of places without the topographic precision of modern cartography. His pictures demonstrate the tension that exists between abstract art and the desire for a narrative of nature.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCFMD12TuBGSJGAJrfi9uPZmDbZNsX7Cr0IfVefPHhyqiK9cxm2c2Pqe5uY41ZguHns1zpdQ1rV5hLwV6uP0skar_9LJCSrud4eTaXxhqTSKX7gYLPN8fLHBrKzdVzcueBI_QUKbC_e36DGrD30Hi5ts1fX8ShPbbWZR7rT8bJebPavVGk5pT-AQ/s1830/West%20Penwith%201949%20Peter%20Lanyon.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="1830" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCFMD12TuBGSJGAJrfi9uPZmDbZNsX7Cr0IfVefPHhyqiK9cxm2c2Pqe5uY41ZguHns1zpdQ1rV5hLwV6uP0skar_9LJCSrud4eTaXxhqTSKX7gYLPN8fLHBrKzdVzcueBI_QUKbC_e36DGrD30Hi5ts1fX8ShPbbWZR7rT8bJebPavVGk5pT-AQ/w400-h100/West%20Penwith%201949%20Peter%20Lanyon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>West Penwith</i>, 1949 Peter Lanyon</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Continual development became central to 20th century avant-garde art, a process which was already important to science, particularly after the renaissance when it was propelled by sea-borne exploration and the discovery of America. The existence of a previously unknown continent established that knowledge based solely on the study of classical texts was doomed to irrelevance. Theories within science are now expected to be continually refined and surpassed.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUtWQM34OPhoYS-Y5RI6aNjPCMqfP93u23pC7xedF93_bsPxTK7sRhblDaTghomu5L2ZG37eF1auo2dxC41cInfu3Zdoxu4EzQs-uSAQaRzgvJD5szDEv9dvAH1lTlBAHDGXBCac1M6FwIhJNwTLEYZ3tgVH8aEj8Mo9-7B1Lnxp42X3beQhdmTw/s1795/Corliss%20Steam%20engine%201876.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1795" data-original-width="1481" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUtWQM34OPhoYS-Y5RI6aNjPCMqfP93u23pC7xedF93_bsPxTK7sRhblDaTghomu5L2ZG37eF1auo2dxC41cInfu3Zdoxu4EzQs-uSAQaRzgvJD5szDEv9dvAH1lTlBAHDGXBCac1M6FwIhJNwTLEYZ3tgVH8aEj8Mo9-7B1Lnxp42X3beQhdmTw/w165-h200/Corliss%20Steam%20engine%201876.jpg" width="165" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;">Corliss steam engine </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;">exhibited </b><b style="font-family: arial;">in 1876. </b><b style="font-family: arial;"> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;">From <i>Scientific </i></b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>American</i></b></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The belief that the future would be different from the past also emerged from the industrial revolution. The idea that ways of working could change without there being an end-point prepared society to understand Darwin's theory of natural selection in 1859. Modern art also started within the new paradigm. The <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/salon" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">1863 Salon des Refusés </span></a>exhibition in Paris subverted the rigid aesthetics of of the Académie des Beaux-Arts by showing paintings rejected by their official annual exhibition, unleashing continual artistic change.<p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Art and science followed parallel paths in the renaissance when the evolution of perspectival drawing advanced with the development of optics, but there was a gradual divergence over the following centuries. Initially, modern art seemed to promise a renewed relationship with science, with some similarity of methods and interests. Several impressionist artists explored the perception of colour, overlapping with scientists' investigations of light. Art historians have seen links between Einstein's theory of relativity and cubist painting. <b>(1) </b>Art 'movements' such as futurism and surrealism were accompanied by manifestos, prompting expressions of loyalty or scepticism similar to the reactions of scientists to today's cosmological <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">'M-theories'</span></a> such as; string theory, 'Brane theory and supersymmetry</span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the 20th century science explored subatomic nature as avant-garde art became </span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">synonymous with abstract, or non-objective art. The ideal of objective reality was left behind as cubism, surrealism and abstraction became the most influential art movements. </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">At the same time, nature seemed to disappear into the laboratory as examination of the </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">processes</span></div><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXxlH6Zb1cYJz9Ehb30QAOjHaoXiLiGxYe0Dd1geFuJI-jhbUtKVPIZlmRGiIHAHncJiwgqlYdPaUij2DiDB00csIMJoUy6aEGPVu2p96VN44JMr28wonF-qX9JAvzhM31c6OCBsPoG7UgILbuzL2d2gDEyXunn4tHkHNbwFOtqKEDKgSNpdLgYQ/s1800/Electron%20spiral%20SMALL.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1439" data-original-width="1800" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXxlH6Zb1cYJz9Ehb30QAOjHaoXiLiGxYe0Dd1geFuJI-jhbUtKVPIZlmRGiIHAHncJiwgqlYdPaUij2DiDB00csIMJoUy6aEGPVu2p96VN44JMr28wonF-qX9JAvzhM31c6OCBsPoG7UgILbuzL2d2gDEyXunn4tHkHNbwFOtqKEDKgSNpdLgYQ/w200-h160/Electron%20spiral%20SMALL.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Paths of subatomic particles</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b>revealed in a bubble chamber.</b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Created by collisions after </b></div><span><div style="text-align: left;"><b>acceleration by high-voltage</b></div></span><span><div style="text-align: left;"><b>electricity, their paths are</b></div></span><span><div style="text-align: left;"><b>constrained by intense </b></div></span><span><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="text-align: center;">magnetic fields.</span></b></div></span></b></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">behind the material world took place within conditions of vacuum, radioactivity and high-voltage electricity. </div></span></div></span><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Physics stretched the definition of nature in way that could not be depicted in landscape art. The science journal <i>Nature</i> that started in 1869 was concerned mostly with physics. Norman Lockyer, the first editor of the journal, had previously used spectroscopy to co-discover the gas helium in the sun 27 years before it was known on Earth. In a letter to Lockyer, James Joseph enthused about the title of the new publication: “What a glorious title, Nature - a veritable stroke of genius to have hit upon. It is more than Cosmos, more than Universe. It includes the seen as well as the unseen, the possible as well as the actual. Nature and Nature’s God, mind and matter.." </span><b style="font-family: arial;">(2)</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> As a mathematician, Joseph knew that nature is more than a landscape. The word 'naturalist' became restricted to those who study animals and plants and became subtly different from 'scientist'.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Two distinct ideas of nature had emerged by the 19th century and we live with the influence of that dichotomy today. Physics showed that while the fundamental forces of nature might be invisible they are everywhere, permeating everyday reality from outer space to the wood in the dining-room table, but it is difficult to relate that level of description of nature to everyday life unless we are thinking about technology. Landscape art remains popular partly because it <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihEOaNjuf3-RBkcaLM_B6d-speLYqSfRgUUk6uXcz8Ik4V-zHON0ntfjcRm-dkgbN36MueZ8Nvf1yECiO0pheW4jtfGiihceSrh9pSQhZmeOftp5wVQ3HjT_wDxGaa62r1T3tyUpglFsQ6rnoLMm4wMxFpcf2oHUxpnBMytF4HkF1R-idFHMevLg/s1191/Kathmandu_Nepal_fullwidth.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="945" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihEOaNjuf3-RBkcaLM_B6d-speLYqSfRgUUk6uXcz8Ik4V-zHON0ntfjcRm-dkgbN36MueZ8Nvf1yECiO0pheW4jtfGiihceSrh9pSQhZmeOftp5wVQ3HjT_wDxGaa62r1T3tyUpglFsQ6rnoLMm4wMxFpcf2oHUxpnBMytF4HkF1R-idFHMevLg/w159-h200/Kathmandu_Nepal_fullwidth.jpg" width="159" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kathmandu, Nepal. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Surveyed </b><b>by an ESA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">satellite, depicted in</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">false-colour infra-red.</span></b></div></b></td></tr></tbody></table>expresses essentially literary ideas; the picturesque, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y23j" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">the Sublime</span></a>, virtue and providence, concepts which do not require us to attempt counter-intuitive understanding of how nature actually works.</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Attempts at reconciling science and art have always been problematic. The issue is not only one of a separation of concerns but also difference of vision. Evolution has provided us with senses that are just good enough for survival. Science has extended our ability to see further into the electromagnetic spectrum; infra-red, x-rays, radio waves as well as forming images with electrons, but crucially it is through our own senses that we live. It is this aspect of </span><span style="font-family: arial;">existence that art celebrates. The uncanny images of nature made by technology can be as unfamiliar as abstract art, which itself has always been on a path away from a simplistic depiction of nature.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Holger Cahill lamented the move away from figurative art in his introduction to the catalogue <i>New Horizons in American Art</i> </span><b style="font-family: arial;">(3)</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> to the 1936 exhibition of work done under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Art_Project" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration</span></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;">: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">"Nature was no longer a harmony to be studied. It became something that furnished occasions for the exercise of a technique...Art in other words, had its own harmony, independent of nature. This idea was carried to its final term by the Cubists who declared that art need have no frame of reference in </span><span style="font-family: arial;">nature at all." Cahill did not claim that landscape art had ever been about 'realistic' observation but he wrote that before modern art "Nature had been had been conceived as a principle underlying the forms and phenomena of the visual world, drawing them into a </span><span style="font-family: arial;">harmonious and purposive whole, benevolent and somehow friendly to man's interests and ideals." </span><b style="font-family: arial;">(3)</b></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiErbd4MqZxt_oFTF2XXE6qdYD4i8m8jGKIfdhoklfLmOB0ALD97qdndyiPz5jnFFwJUfK_nYNluBgqtwrbX1H4yoiscTQak9shpdkLivHNj_ltLptoP8qd7YrSIofFFLomhKcf4T3YNobcJYYlO5ZalhiHmfW8UdshRzaC-rdePsV5DYT4BzBNQ/s841/Karl%20Fortess%20-%20Winter%20Vista%20copy.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="841" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiErbd4MqZxt_oFTF2XXE6qdYD4i8m8jGKIfdhoklfLmOB0ALD97qdndyiPz5jnFFwJUfK_nYNluBgqtwrbX1H4yoiscTQak9shpdkLivHNj_ltLptoP8qd7YrSIofFFLomhKcf4T3YNobcJYYlO5ZalhiHmfW8UdshRzaC-rdePsV5DYT4BzBNQ/w200-h118/Karl%20Fortess%20-%20Winter%20Vista%20copy.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><i>Golden, Colorado </i><span>by</span></b><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><i> </i></b><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Eugene </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Trentham. The picture was </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">reproduced in black and white in</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">New Horizons in American Art. </span></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The book posits a style of 'folk</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">art' as an alternative to 'European'</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">abstract art.</span></b></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Because of the symbolic or allegorical tendency within landscape pictures, combined with selectivity favouring scenes that are beautiful, picturesque or sublime, landscape art reflects more a state of mind than reality. The values inherent in landscape art were eloquently expressed by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00glr78" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Henry David Thoreau </span></a>in his 1854 book <i>Waldron - or Life in the Woods.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Thoreau wrote about self-reliance and living in close harmony with nature. He was critical of industrial 'progress'. For a period of time he chose to live in a hut at Waldron Pond near Concord in Massachusetts, so as to be as close as possible to the flora and fauna of the woods. His observations about the seasonal changes of plants and trees are of interest to climate-change scientists today. For Thoreau, Waldron Pond functioned as a microcosm, a miniature version of an ideal but beleaguered world in which industry and intensive farming were kept at bay.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEios-_z3Qztzzd3G5-9R1oeqikdTrOpe4trttW2X4rMNwrNZu3kZC2ZdeBSiM234VfP5-4SuuUgne5ILciz6fhgneNjWsDj0lradSwK586sF6b3aOePhzqYFspqPfpeG0IOGijn8VBC9GG83T93-jfGHEaMwjQ_Tym3GKQ3uteRxNdG6f7Zi2flVA/s1200/Olafur%20Eliasson,%20The%20weather%20project,%202003.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="979" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEios-_z3Qztzzd3G5-9R1oeqikdTrOpe4trttW2X4rMNwrNZu3kZC2ZdeBSiM234VfP5-4SuuUgne5ILciz6fhgneNjWsDj0lradSwK586sF6b3aOePhzqYFspqPfpeG0IOGijn8VBC9GG83T93-jfGHEaMwjQ_Tym3GKQ3uteRxNdG6f7Zi2flVA/w163-h200/Olafur%20Eliasson,%20The%20weather%20project,%202003.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-size: small;"><b>The Weather </b><b>Project</b></i><b style="font-size: small;"> by</b></div><span><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>Olafur Eliasson in the </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>Turbine Hall at Tate Modern</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>in 2003. A representation of</b><b> </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>the visible surface of our</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>sun </b><b>created by </b><b>200 sodium</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>lights. If the </b><b>generation of </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>electricity by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_fusion" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">thermonuclear</span></a></b><b> </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>power is </b><b>ever achieved it </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>will be in </b><b>a machine placed</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>in a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-63119465" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">facility</span></a></b><b> that would be</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>very </b><b>similar t</b><b>o the </b><b>Turbine </b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>Hall at the T</b><b>ate. </b><b>The device</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>will </b><span style="text-align: center;"><b>effectively</b></span><b> be an</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>artificial sun created by</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>technology.</b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b>The building occupied</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">by Tate Modern originally</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>contained </b></span><b style="font-weight: bold;">the </b><b>Bankside </b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>power </b><b>station and was</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">designed b</b><b>y Sir Gilbert </b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>Scott. At the peak of its</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>output Bankside power</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>station used 67 tons of</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>fuel-oil per hour to </b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>generate 300 MW of</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>electricity. Thermonuclear</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>fusion generates </b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>approximately one million</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>times as much energy as</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>chemical combustion.</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>Sunlight produced by</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>thermonuclear fusion in</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>our sun is the source of</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b>energy for all life on </b><b>Earth.</b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b><div style="font-weight: 400;"><b>Sir Gilbert </b><b>Scott was also</b></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><b>the architect for Liverpool</b></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><b>Anglican Cathedral.</b></div></b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: small;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>The 21st century will bring to the foreground all the contradictory ideas of nature. Responses to environmental problems will be influenced by culturally determined images of nature from literature and landscape art. Genetically engineering plants to use more carbon dioxide from the air, the possibility of sequestering the gas underground, restoration of carbon sinks and the rewilding of inefficient farmland by intensification of agriculture elsewhere are as much aesthetic questions as ecological ones. The dividing line between nature and technology will be scrutinised. New forms of art are needed to comprehend the shape of the world we are creating, a cultural response that cannot be considered only in scientific terms. </span><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">1)</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Laporte, Paul M. "Cubism and Science." The Journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 1949, Vol.7 (3), p.243-256</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>(2) </b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/history-of-nature" target="_blank">https://www.nature.com/nature/history-of-nature</a></span></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">(3)</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Cahill, H, and Federal Art Project. New Horizons in American Art. New York: Published for the M.O M.A. reprinted by Arno, 1969.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">https://www.proquest.com/docview/859016746/fulltextPDF/73960000DC3743E9PQ/1?accountid=8018</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11320118-utopias-11" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11320118-utopias-11</span></a><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-32827971257193261372022-10-03T23:01:00.002+01:002022-11-05T13:02:36.039+00:00Art Beyond Nature<p> </p><p><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11259594-art-beyond-nature" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11259594-art-beyond-nature</span></a><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUyIno8JGgatBmq2hWWR_Q0LopQKUUHqRjNpyhRE6B_GkDP5IJ2UgW_c_QNIi1wtV2fSpdm1bu7xEiMgb-Yu6SvtjEJcQl0P_8GILZcLJVsVrMhtZCjE71Ta5H1Y5v8uVNZORZwaYLJ9F_EZ-NEKdAYc0G3BXFvEjzXjZKXPk1oJacojwXDW1EUQ/s512/Thomas%20Moran..jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="512" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUyIno8JGgatBmq2hWWR_Q0LopQKUUHqRjNpyhRE6B_GkDP5IJ2UgW_c_QNIi1wtV2fSpdm1bu7xEiMgb-Yu6SvtjEJcQl0P_8GILZcLJVsVrMhtZCjE71Ta5H1Y5v8uVNZORZwaYLJ9F_EZ-NEKdAYc0G3BXFvEjzXjZKXPk1oJacojwXDW1EUQ/s320/Thomas%20Moran..jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>From 1826 when the first photograph was made to 1889 when</b><br /><b>rolls of celluloid film became available, photography changed</b><br /><b>from a medium that required almost as much work to make</b><br /><b>one exposure as the creation of a small painting, to a small</b><br /><b>portable box that could take multiple pictures, each taking</b><br /><b>a fraction of a second to record. The task of attempting to <br />represent nature </b><b>in a single picture became unnecessary. <br />Photography changed how we see nature.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Throughout the 19th century photography gradually moved away from the aesthetics of painting to <span style="text-align: left;">become a medium that was about paying attention to fleeting instances of existence. In the 20th century public understanding of nature was increasingly mediated through picture-magazines, documentary film and television. The expectation of seeing the essence of nature depicted in a single monumental painting, as was the ambition of landscape artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, was eclipsed by a multitude of photographs and cine-films depicting the natural world. Despite the tendency of photography to create meaning through the accumulation of images, two photographs attained the monumental status of some landscape paintings. Both the Apollo 8<i> Earthrise</i> and the Apollo 17 <i>Blue Marble</i> photographs of the Earth have been adopted by the environmental <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEyvqYPlQf4pMJbcJeDC_qE0BLTButAO01rRBGNQfDM7Ps0KBKFCApw7nyDMN6NrMa4d0qHBxkCBD9TP1UBrx7S5QrYen44MPU8atmb_MHNxBNJSXz3i7yHTZVRr0kstyOdGs2lITzaZIUBk4hZ7PFWmeVjGk96wn5qwpIEE2SGZweTw8ggzJ0g/s599/7thDecember%201972%20Apollo%2017.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="599" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEyvqYPlQf4pMJbcJeDC_qE0BLTButAO01rRBGNQfDM7Ps0KBKFCApw7nyDMN6NrMa4d0qHBxkCBD9TP1UBrx7S5QrYen44MPU8atmb_MHNxBNJSXz3i7yHTZVRr0kstyOdGs2lITzaZIUBk4hZ7PFWmeVjGk96wn5qwpIEE2SGZweTw8ggzJ0g/w200-h200/7thDecember%201972%20Apollo%2017.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The <i>Blue Marble</i> photograph of Earth</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b>was taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on</b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b>the return leg of their mission to the </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Moon in December 1972. The image </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>shows no sign of life that would be</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>incontrovertible if this were to be a </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>picture of an exo-planet. The reception</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>of the picture by society is framed by</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>cultural values more often expressed </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>by language. The photograph has</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>acquired the monumental status of some</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>19th Century landscape paintings. The</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>picture is sublime in that it is both</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>beautiful and contains implications that</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>are terrifying.</b></div></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>movement as emblematic images of our precious biosphere, even though only clouds are visible in them. The pictures are </span><span style="text-align: center;">actually enigmatic and the values attached to them are essentially literary ideas inherited from writers such as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00glr78" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Henry David Thoreau</span></a>. His philosophy of simple living in natural surroundings is more influential now than in his own lifetime. His 1854 book <i>Walden; or Life in the Woods</i> insisted that a life lived isolated from nature is not an authentic life. The controversial writer and transcendentalist Laurens van Der Post promoted this idea in the 1950s and, inspired by Carl Jung, proposed that wellbeing could only be attained through access to a universal unconscious that civilisation was diminishing. Avant-Garde art was already exploring this concept as the ideal of pictorial realism became increasingly invested in photography - freeing artists to experiment with non-objective (abstract) pictures. In 20th century European art, two competing ideas of authentic representations of nature coincided; the fashionable Theosophical/Jungian </span><span style="text-align: left;">idea that abstract art was pursuing a world of harmony or energy that lay beyond visible reality (Artists as different as Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock were interested in this concept), and the traditional but still popular idea that a realistic depiction of an ideal scene can express the beauty (picturesque or<span> </span>sublime) of nature. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmEYeDMK_8KgCeNxxA_VubA1jP2q2RXhoXz2a0-FVUJ526-XLhgIHT3SX8wCKDMPzxZDqwgWnpICQBnleQ9d8q-iyl6PQxgCLatjlwapfIJDIm_fVpQTjX-o3GHgBtp-JQxwR54BxpiRwDE2wOC_aR8VVqNYbCqeW1wWaOuQZDg3R88CpsSFH9g/s1174/Mondrian%20composition%20in%20Yellow,%20Blue%20and%20Red.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1129" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmEYeDMK_8KgCeNxxA_VubA1jP2q2RXhoXz2a0-FVUJ526-XLhgIHT3SX8wCKDMPzxZDqwgWnpICQBnleQ9d8q-iyl6PQxgCLatjlwapfIJDIm_fVpQTjX-o3GHgBtp-JQxwR54BxpiRwDE2wOC_aR8VVqNYbCqeW1wWaOuQZDg3R88CpsSFH9g/w193-h200/Mondrian%20composition%20in%20Yellow,%20Blue%20and%20Red.jpg" width="193" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i>Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red</i><br />1937-42 Piet Mondrian <br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In 1936 Holger Cahill wrote about modern</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>art "Art..had its own harmony independent</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>of nature...(now) art need have no frame of </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reference </b><b>in nature at all. The </b><b>relationship </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>with </b><b>nature, which had given the artist a</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>creative impetus for upward of two hundred</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>years, thus tended to disappear. "</b></div></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">Modern art, within modernism, became inward looking. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001dxtg" target="_blank">The Bauhaus art school</a> had its greatest influence on Architecture, graphic design and product design. The tendency for civilisation to become synonymous with the built environment and social space was legitemised by the 'disappearance' of nature into the laboratory as science explored matter at the level of atoms. Although (like music) fundamental nature has no visible surface, the search for authenticity occurs in modern science. In the age of remote-sensing satellites expeditions are sent out to establish 'ground truth' so as to calibrate instruments in space. In the parallel world of art, Walter Benjamin had a different problem with authenticity. In his 1935 book <i>The Work of</i> <i>Art in</i> <i>the Age of Mechanical Reproduction</i> Benjamin argued that the 'aura' of paintings is missing in photographic copies because their uniqueness in a particular time and space is absent. These different aspects of authenticity come together in any consideration of the future of landscape art. The land art pioneer Robert Smithson turned the problem of pictorial authenticity into a creative opportunity when he devised his 'non-site' installations in which sketches, photographs and samples of material from remote landscapes were <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY1XJyPpA3dzjMXPIwjdvmINE_03fJhbz1zojKB4IcQTdHNh0nT1ilHygulougzS8OoB-e66PxGoMRsHPG8XINzoWLTqy6gtSzDCPLENmHg7mET7yiE7LjfOsYdhfYeTQ1-tSGKmz_EBBeXh8DPdG_4icFvG0wZbfJ7X6ru5HtJXhQET18i9jR8Q/s2259/Electron%20orbits%20model%20uranium%20atom.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1834" data-original-width="2259" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY1XJyPpA3dzjMXPIwjdvmINE_03fJhbz1zojKB4IcQTdHNh0nT1ilHygulougzS8OoB-e66PxGoMRsHPG8XINzoWLTqy6gtSzDCPLENmHg7mET7yiE7LjfOsYdhfYeTQ1-tSGKmz_EBBeXh8DPdG_4icFvG0wZbfJ7X6ru5HtJXhQET18i9jR8Q/w200-h163/Electron%20orbits%20model%20uranium%20atom.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Electron </span></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">orbits</span></b><b style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"> </b><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">of</span></b><b style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"> a </b><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Uranium</span></b><b style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"> </b><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">atom</span></b><b style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Today the ancient Greek concepts of </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="text-align: left;">'The Music </b><span style="text-align: left;"><b>of the Spheres' and</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="text-align: left;">'platonic shapes' </b><b style="text-align: left;">persist </b><b style="text-align: left;">in a </b><b style="text-align: left;">modified </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="text-align: left;">form in science. </b><b>Shells of electrons</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>orbiting atomic </b><b>nuclei are </b><b>reminiscent </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>of the </b><b>concentric </b><b>crystal spheres,</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>once </b><b>believed </b><b>to surround the Earth,</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>and the </b><b>geometry of molecules</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>too </b><b>small </b><b>for us to see echo </b><b>the</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>'Platonic Shapes</b><b>' </b><b>of ancient </b><b>Greek </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">philosophers.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBNFl0Irw7K7qjJZIgxx3ucjoO4UgiSlMgMQgaK0KdzwQDwC7o8hG4A_iqlNAb-64qcwV-n_oeJlrOO8Q3nsXduu2f70Q6t2ko16b8gA7sLaiZgAEB1g_FOvLfek5lzHa1HHuMBmY8nNFiQpRHwTcJqq4GhsdurZUT2OQAI5rgyTiLexKbC5qyQ/s1021/Chloroplast.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="1021" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBNFl0Irw7K7qjJZIgxx3ucjoO4UgiSlMgMQgaK0KdzwQDwC7o8hG4A_iqlNAb-64qcwV-n_oeJlrOO8Q3nsXduu2f70Q6t2ko16b8gA7sLaiZgAEB1g_FOvLfek5lzHa1HHuMBmY8nNFiQpRHwTcJqq4GhsdurZUT2OQAI5rgyTiLexKbC5qyQ/w200-h145/Chloroplast.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold;"><b>Chloroplasts in plant tissue. </b></span><b>Genetic</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold;"><b>editing could increase their </b></span><b>efficiency</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>by 20%, causing more Carbon </b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>Dioxide to be extracted from the </b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>atmosphere.</b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><b>The outstanding feature of our</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>relationship with nature in the 21st </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>Century will be our ability to change</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>it at the most basic level of life - DNA.<br /></b></span><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Because living organisms reproduce,</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">changes that will be made using </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">genetic editing techniques could</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">become more widespread than our</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">current onslaught on nature with</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">mechanical technology. Changes to</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>ecosystems</b></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b> would be irreversible.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>A new ethos of our relationship to</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>nature will be centred around decisions</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>about how much of the biosphere </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>should </b></span><b style="font-family: arial;">be </b><b style="font-family: arial;">changed. If art is to have</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>any </b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>relevance </b></span><b style="font-family: arial;">to this process it will</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;">need to go </b><b style="font-family: arial;">beyond the type of </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;">landscape picture </b><b style="font-family: arial;">that Jaan Wijnants</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;">painted. (Right)</b><b style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps it wiil take</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;">inspiration from </b><b style="font-family: arial;">work such as the </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;">animated data-</b><b style="font-family: arial;">realisation </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><i>Welcome to the </i></b><b style="font-family: arial;"><i>Anthropocene. </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Below)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJX5ufgGKDBZAqolT19Two696K6T1YYIvku5vysOiCkIMJvcHVVqAZMxub_NIogIITkSqMEiSnYP-GBlf_73HmzfLBayOTcc71sTxag4YPODw8derbsOH2qiGvBFRCNzv6gWMebAhCovFlQ2ISie54D8c_GIs6u6xnH69oUCgbwM7OMf6ssuoYA/s560/Water%20in%20the%20Anthropocene.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="560" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJX5ufgGKDBZAqolT19Two696K6T1YYIvku5vysOiCkIMJvcHVVqAZMxub_NIogIITkSqMEiSnYP-GBlf_73HmzfLBayOTcc71sTxag4YPODw8derbsOH2qiGvBFRCNzv6gWMebAhCovFlQ2ISie54D8c_GIs6u6xnH69oUCgbwM7OMf6ssuoYA/w200-h140/Water%20in%20the%20Anthropocene.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Welcome to the Anthropocene</span></a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> 3minute 38 second video</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div></td></tr></tbody></table>exhibited in art galleries. Smithson created an aesthetic from the gap between representation of nature and actual landscapes. In the 21st century similar ingenuity will be needed to reflect how the potential use of technologies, such as<span style="color: #0b5394;"> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62592286" target="_blank"><span>synthetic biology</span></a></span> and the 'reverse-engineering' of the atmosphere by CO<span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span> removal, will bring into focus questions about the authenticity of the heavily managed biosphere. The potential to change nature will be substantially greater than at any time in history. The area between photographic 'realism' and abstract imagining will converge with the evolving boundary between nature and artifice. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span> </span><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc5b7PE0BM7oR8_uzOfeDkFlVMi3G2NitqwohEUEt-UGTDYSavpOC_37ZXTK5j-dnJD-Squ-r3BPRO8pR8nIW9KCuM9VSeWeaD5YG2iiCofow0wtKQt239aOgrM4DSf9i4xaO1yZrqsqHAuLOytVoSfMrVUO6OfUrspMt5CxPdYnonpWcnCiPJw/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1979_517-001.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="800" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc5b7PE0BM7oR8_uzOfeDkFlVMi3G2NitqwohEUEt-UGTDYSavpOC_37ZXTK5j-dnJD-Squ-r3BPRO8pR8nIW9KCuM9VSeWeaD5YG2iiCofow0wtKQt239aOgrM4DSf9i4xaO1yZrqsqHAuLOytVoSfMrVUO6OfUrspMt5CxPdYnonpWcnCiPJw/w320-h275/GMIII_MCAG_1979_517-001.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"><b style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>W</i></span></b><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>ooded Landscape with Figures Walking by a Sandy
Bank</i> - Jaan </span></b></span><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: center;"><b style="white-space: normal;">Wijnants (1635-1684)</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>Wijnants picture is in the style of most landscape </b><b>paintings</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>of that era, but the 'sandy bank' that is </b><b>depicted is most</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>unusual. The feature is actually a former cliff-face that was </b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>left behind by the creation of a polder - land reclaimed from </b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>the sea. The figures are walking on what would have been a</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>beach or the sea-floor. This is perhaps the earliest work of</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>art that can be related to the Anthropocene, our current </b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>epoch in which humans have become a geological force</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>that rivals natural Earth systems.</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>Attempts at reconciling science and art have always been</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>problematic. The issue is not one of difference of methods</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>but difference of vision. Evolution has provided us with</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>senses that are just good enough for survival. Science and</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>technology have expanded our ability to see into the infra-</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>red, the x-ray spectrum, radio waves and electrons. </b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>Crucially it is through our own senses that we live. It is this</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>aspect of existence that art celebrates. The capacity of</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>scientific methods to map nature over time is also different</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b>from our lived experience. It was <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Robert Smithson</span></a> </span>who</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="white-space: normal;">came closest to resolving this </b><b>conundrum</b><b style="white-space: normal;">. Along with other</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_art" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">land artists</span></a> he situated himself firmly within the conceptual<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="white-space: normal;">art movement and created a significant bridge between art</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="white-space: normal;">and science.</b></div><div style="text-align: left; white-space: normal;"><b><br /></b></div></span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></b></span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-family: times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><b><br /></b></span></span></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-59480382976201480982022-08-27T18:22:00.000+01:002022-08-27T18:24:23.497+01:00Lost in Landscape.<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11200757-lost-in-landscape-john-stockton" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11200757-lost-in-landscape-john-stockton</span></a><br /></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: right;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ2XiAvHpyivSOb2eR2KiaEd-f1I4AdtgfPeFc-6dj0MkmFYLuLmfJQmB5dv8dNdEzXvDJAiEpmdbGfC6vDB429t_ZkokCIwg5P88Zq5W_5KWJD9rOoQMJM6Chfgb9UdJzaBpAUOy1a8cy4SimhtH8LMJqG2Y2vope0E6qMu1b7MtCtIr5OUEa2A/s1840/CNV00026%20curves.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="1840" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ2XiAvHpyivSOb2eR2KiaEd-f1I4AdtgfPeFc-6dj0MkmFYLuLmfJQmB5dv8dNdEzXvDJAiEpmdbGfC6vDB429t_ZkokCIwg5P88Zq5W_5KWJD9rOoQMJM6Chfgb9UdJzaBpAUOy1a8cy4SimhtH8LMJqG2Y2vope0E6qMu1b7MtCtIr5OUEa2A/w200-h134/CNV00026%20curves.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/what-we-do/about-us/our-history" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-small;">Attenborough nature reserve</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> in</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Nottinghamshire is the result of </b></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>gravel extraction that has left</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>behind flooded areas that are now </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>managed </b><b>by a wildlife conservation</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>charity</b><b>. In </b><b>this Anthropocene </b><b>epoch</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>human </b><b>activity moves </b><b>more material</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>than rivers and </b><b>glaciers. </b><b>Humans have</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>become a geological force. </b><b>Climate</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>change means that no corner of </b><b>the</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Earth is unaffected. No landscape</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>can be though of as truly 'authentic'. </b></div><br /></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">We are familiar with the possibility of getting lost in a landscape bu<span style="font-family: inherit;">t the <a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Anthropocene</span></a> epoch, the </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">present time in which humans have effectively overridden nature, presents a way of being metaphorically lost in the increasingly artificial world that we are creating by our own technological power. Ideas of nature are as much a product of imagination as landscape pictures. While we </span><span style="text-align: left;">believe </span><span style="text-align: left;">that we have a relationship with an objectively real world, there is a race between the discovery of its hidden intricacies and the rate at which agriculture and industry is transforming it. The defining characteristic of the 21st century will be the relentless replacement of the natural world by the built-environment, agriculture, synthetic biology and waste materials. Humans are responsible for a new mass extinction event. The expansion of agriculture and globalised consumerism is moving the world towards a homogenised biosphere in which the concept of 'invasive species' will no longer be meaningful. Biomass may remain broadly the same as the number of species within it diminishes. Biodiversity is reduced and Earth systems are being pushed to tipping points beyond which they will operate in new and unpredictable ways. </span></div></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>The tradition of western landscape art has been complicit in this process. </div><div>Bucolic landscape scenes depicted actual landscapes as constructed <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRJdOXBhCPQkuw2a3qEjeFh8TUZXF8sva0AhLF5dT5uojl90-eiohu-K8KGEx6OUB69ohMmKKUAAzchnz5Z4DAUVLyNIveXfvLVghs9R4jNzx8EEUqqxb8wmU0Du2BurYql9-n0eZ-tBi6TaGHNK3ArYzBp9NInm6monsvT-Vx4ZUckGwhY_NvQ/s704/Constable%20Flatford%20Mill.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="704" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRJdOXBhCPQkuw2a3qEjeFh8TUZXF8sva0AhLF5dT5uojl90-eiohu-K8KGEx6OUB69ohMmKKUAAzchnz5Z4DAUVLyNIveXfvLVghs9R4jNzx8EEUqqxb8wmU0Du2BurYql9-n0eZ-tBi6TaGHNK3ArYzBp9NInm6monsvT-Vx4ZUckGwhY_NvQ/w200-h160/Constable%20Flatford%20Mill.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Flatford Mill</i><b> c 1816 John Constable</b></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The son of a wealthy corn merchant,</b></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Constable's early paintings exhibit an</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>affection for the area in which he lived.</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>His landscapes belong to an era when</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>commerce was on such a small scale</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>it could operate in sympathy with nature.</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Today, his paintings are part of a nostalgia</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'industry' of which tourism is a very real</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>economic part. Hill farming subsidies</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>in the UK are partly paid to maintain</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>farms in the appearance made </b><b>familiar by</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>landscape art. The grazing on hill farms</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">keeps the land free from vegetation that </div><div style="text-align: justify;">would help to reduce flooding and absorb </div><div style="text-align: justify;">carbon dioxide.</div></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>achievements that were a combination of providence and virtuous labour. The picturesque sub-genre of landscape art provides a dream of nature, in which the desire to exploit the landscape operates in harmony with a reduced form of wilderness in the form of woods and distant hills. Within landscape art there is no real difference between agriculture and nature. This still popular aesthetic of the picturesque landscape picture (painted or photographed) suggests that as long as there are a few corners of the world that are still wild, all will be well. Actually, the impact of human activity on Earth systems occurs on a scale that is outside the scope of any single picture. Carbon dioxide emissions are not only increasing global temperatures, they are also acidifying oceans. Methane emissions from cattle also act as a greenhouse gas. It is possible that humans are now driving evolution and creating some new species as well as pushing many more to extinction. Inevitably technology in the 21st century will be used to try to navigate the Anthropocene. Attempts to use genetic engineering to modify not just crops but entire ecosystems to cope with climate <span style="text-align: justify;">change are being considered. The genes that control photosynthesis may be changed so that more carbon dioxide is <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.livingcarbon.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">removed from the air</span></a>.</span> Machines to capture the gas and store it underground already exist. Nostalgic landscape art is no longer a reflection of life.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wa88IsWFrlxmALTH9mywpEHLnLp6yvtwoqTwxiAwH9DpPUaGzZuqzsWEVpsG6jmxLALcJT3HjTWTuyL9bgw9usLzpixwFjPYsMs1gAUEy0wEUjLibOX1F61TUP0kPRdxS_yXFic5WTY7fft_2EOtPod_OWGjP05GJyQX_8Vne8LX1eHHlXDQJg/s322/photo_51.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="317" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wa88IsWFrlxmALTH9mywpEHLnLp6yvtwoqTwxiAwH9DpPUaGzZuqzsWEVpsG6jmxLALcJT3HjTWTuyL9bgw9usLzpixwFjPYsMs1gAUEy0wEUjLibOX1F61TUP0kPRdxS_yXFic5WTY7fft_2EOtPod_OWGjP05GJyQX_8Vne8LX1eHHlXDQJg/w197-h200/photo_51.jpg" width="197" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since the iconic <i>Picture 51 </i>x-ray</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>diffraction photograph was made</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>by Rosalind Franklin in 1952 the</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>discovery of the structure of DNA,</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>which the picture enabled, has resulted</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>in the invention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_editing" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">genome editing</span></a> </b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>technology which will alter plants to</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>use more carbon dioxide from the air.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>Eventually</b></span><b style="font-weight: bold;"> entire ecosystems could be</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>altered, either to help plants cope with</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>climate change or to try to return </b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>atmospheric CO2 levels to pre-</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"><b>industrial values.</b></div><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The 21st century needs a new genre of art that contemplates the changing distinction between the natural world and technology as well as acknowledging that the 'technological sublime' is now as eloquent as 'sublime nature' was in Edmund Burke's time. The extent to which contemporary art is characterised by detachment, coolness and irony is unhelpful in this direction. The expectation that minimalism can distill the essence of what is significant into a few lines or shapes goes unfulfilled. Visual art could provide a critical context to the exercise of control over nature by creating opportunities for contemplation and reverie and to momentarily step back from the language of institutions, writers and journalists. Landscapes will change as livestock becomes less prominent in agriculture. Opposing practices of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">permaculture</span></a><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span>versus intensive agriculture, including industrialised <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">'vertical farming'</span></a> and the production of cultured meat in bioreactors, will probably operate at the same time in different places. While permaculture aims to reduce the impact of food production on nature, paradoxically, industrialised farming concentrated in smaller areas opens the possibility of rewilding and the return of farmland to carbon-sink wetland. Wind and solar energy will become<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicO1ofMKXHKTEw4nTCzVY_JI1Lk6cB7mGhlAbQHdO4os72Nabrqk8oxuREKq6Glkj_Ht1PjDjAMeTDerExLZ-WJ3yx9BW3v3HB9S-IPUMmXmB3S-Dg3CF2u0c9szBNU1jT5SZiU4xLJNtlg0mVitLBOkgGkkbvuH5LyyGb7HyHhIF-gj_GE00wTg/s350/mast_ieee.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="350" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicO1ofMKXHKTEw4nTCzVY_JI1Lk6cB7mGhlAbQHdO4os72Nabrqk8oxuREKq6Glkj_Ht1PjDjAMeTDerExLZ-WJ3yx9BW3v3HB9S-IPUMmXmB3S-Dg3CF2u0c9szBNU1jT5SZiU4xLJNtlg0mVitLBOkgGkkbvuH5LyyGb7HyHhIF-gj_GE00wTg/w200-h161/mast_ieee.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">There is no guarantee that thermonuclear</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>fusion can be used as a source of electricity.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>If a way of harnessing the heat released by</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>fusing protons together is found it could be</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>the </b><b>most significant technical innovation </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>since </b><b>the discovery of how to make fire. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Fusion power would not eliminate the need</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>for solar, tidal, geothermal and wind energy,</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>but the surplus capacity could be used to </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>mechanically</b></span><b> extract carbon dioxide from</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>the atmosphere, liquefy it and store it </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>underground. Whoever controlled access to </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>these underground stores would </b><span style="text-align: center;"><b>effectively</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>have their hand on the 'global thermostat'.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>In some distant future the gas could be</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>released to negate the onset of an ice-age.</b></span></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"> more common. Controlled thermonuclear fusion, if it works, will effectively create artificial suns on Earth. The diffusing boundary between naturalness and artifice will be the most important subject for art in the 21st century, creating the impetus for a new aesthetic in art as almost the entire world becomes a kind of walled garden with wilderness confined to ever-decreasing pockets - an exact reversal of the medieval <i>hortus </i><i>conclusus </i><span>or ancient</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i>paradeisos. </i><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9M9gAtW0PSjZ0z9SODZgdnfnVKRZXgoWNyS6qTni_uFODHjivdJeYkPc4gQAwUD_i9NIPueuXmhT25HXOkrr3vwAhYCNtIJhvIe34932RpFTTvINNHUoc7_EopRVLu4NYW33-8DE9yNV_pw3Twi15cXFKFaH_cPAUJydogv0Z5mxVsTRi4-mQ3Q/s3000/Wintergarden.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2332" data-original-width="3000" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9M9gAtW0PSjZ0z9SODZgdnfnVKRZXgoWNyS6qTni_uFODHjivdJeYkPc4gQAwUD_i9NIPueuXmhT25HXOkrr3vwAhYCNtIJhvIe34932RpFTTvINNHUoc7_EopRVLu4NYW33-8DE9yNV_pw3Twi15cXFKFaH_cPAUJydogv0Z5mxVsTRi4-mQ3Q/w320-h250/Wintergarden.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">A winter garden under cover painted by Franz Antoine in 1852.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The glass-enclosed space is perhaps the ultimate form of a garden</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">in which the air itself is protected from cold.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Before landscape art evolved from narrative driven </span></b><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">history </span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>painting, walled gardens such as the European <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_conclusus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Hortus Conclusus</span></a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>and the </b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_garden" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Paradeisos</span></a><b> of Egypt and Persia were culturally important</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>means of maintaining a shared </b><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">understanding and interpretation</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>of nature. The ordering of space can serve as metaphor for the </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>construction of meaning in general, and the creation of a garden</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>is specifically symbolic of a belief in an underlying order behind</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>nature.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A paradox of our age is that although our arrangements of fields,</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>orchards and herb gardens were created to save what we value</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>from harm, it is wilderness that is now in need of protection. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Humans now manage 75% of land that is not ice-bound. What</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>was once thought of as threatening is now itself in danger. It can</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>now be understood that although uncultivated nature was once </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>seen as </b><b>randomness it is in fact composed of dynamic </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>relationships </b><b>of </b><b>organisms i</b><b>n complex ecological communities.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The future will bring increasing ability to alter nature. Genome</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>editing, synthetic biology and possibly nano-</b><span style="text-align: center;"><b>technology that</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>will join atoms together to form new compounds without chemical</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reactions, will define the 21st century. It is over ambitions to </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>expect art to reflect all of this, but the active border between </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>nature and </b><b>technology, the actual location of choices, will be </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>a subject as significant as </b><b>landscape was from the 17th century</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>to the 19th century. Metaphorically, the point of contact between </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>nature and technology will be like a weather front dividing </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>air-masses. This active zone of interaction will give rise to the </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>most interesting art.</b></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><ul class="features-and-details-section__book-stats" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="isbn" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-weight: 600; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;"><br /></span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="isbn" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-weight: 600; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;"><br /></span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="isbn" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-weight: 600; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;">LOST IN LANDSCAPE</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="isbn" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-weight: 600; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;">ISBN</span><ul class="cover-type-isbns" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Hardcover, Dust Jacket: 9798210452474</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Hardcover, ImageWrap: 9798210452467</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Softcover: 9798210452450</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></li></ul></li></ul> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> <a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11200757-lost-in-landscape-john-stockton" target="_blank">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11200757-lost-in-landscape-john-stockton</a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p></div>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-81460288592873416272021-06-13T15:00:00.004+01:002021-06-23T00:13:06.472+01:00Utopias - 10<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJIouPSdEJmf8vb3Gn7CpAjUntwqM0ogcEFKbCan-KYnb217NZw3cfRvkFYSMwHLmj-2FeX8ahtPJ310sEhtgtdPfz7JyN8WwMFjGQemJ6A9_4G_VS8f20X7bIY3yktMByPDmm5gRkg/s750/Utopias-10+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="750" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJIouPSdEJmf8vb3Gn7CpAjUntwqM0ogcEFKbCan-KYnb217NZw3cfRvkFYSMwHLmj-2FeX8ahtPJ310sEhtgtdPfz7JyN8WwMFjGQemJ6A9_4G_VS8f20X7bIY3yktMByPDmm5gRkg/w400-h334/Utopias-10+cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Landscape
and Science Fiction<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-align: left; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/10762175-utopias-10-landscape-and-science-fiction" target="_blank">https://www.blurb.com/b/10762175-utopias-10-landscape-and-science-fiction</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-align: left; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>In the 1953 film It Came from Outer Space the main protagonists, John Putnam (an astronomy author) and his girlfriend Ellen Fields, are enjoying a romantic evening under the stars in Arizona when their conversation is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fireball streaking across the sky. The apparition turns out to be a crashing spacecraft that has the power to destroy the Earth if humans interfere with it. Subsequent events follow the pattern of the formulaic science fiction film script described by Susan Sontag in her 1965 essay <i>The Imagination of Disaster</i>. After convincing the local citizens that they are in danger Putnam uses his skill and knowledge to save the day, and the aliens return to space. The bewildered witnesses are left with the familiarity of their everyday existence shattered. </span></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumRb5aRf7F8FewJ8Jf4-n4ZI7xFN_XI5OfyDlyKzAo35-yMp06yF0T7MEEdugVNK4tJbsYKVYAJ72nHTqu6O4K9BDCeF664zgeK2r6alGf9vRCQCrDGWA6ZlJkVWVYv2QOGHdrKQOaA/s390/Itcamefromouterspace.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="254" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumRb5aRf7F8FewJ8Jf4-n4ZI7xFN_XI5OfyDlyKzAo35-yMp06yF0T7MEEdugVNK4tJbsYKVYAJ72nHTqu6O4K9BDCeF664zgeK2r6alGf9vRCQCrDGWA6ZlJkVWVYv2QOGHdrKQOaA/s320/Itcamefromouterspace.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b>Although the poster is in colour<br />the film was made with black<br />and white film and presented<br />as a <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaglyph_3D" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">stereoscopic anaglyph</span></a> </span>print.<br /><br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-align: left; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What
distinguishes post-1945 science fiction films from stories in magazines such as
<i>Amazing Stories</i> and the radio drama <i>Flash Gordon,</i> is that the
films are usually set in normal situations in which an alien invader arrives or
some change in nature itself is brought about, often by an accident involving
atomic power. If the threat is from outer space or results from scientists'
hubris, it takes the form of destruction caused by unnatural creatures or a
hitherto unknown process unleashed by a transgression of nature.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span>It Came From Outer Space </span></i><span>is one of hundreds of similar films
made in the two decades after the Second World War, and it is the events of the
final year of that conflict that made them so different from 1930s science
fiction. London and Antwerp had been bombarded by V2 rockets fired from
German-held territory. These liquid-fuelled missiles came as a complete
surprise to the public. Coming literally and metaphorically out of the blue,
the V2 rocket was so advanced that a later </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">derivative version launched the
first American satellite in 1958. Another revelation was radar, which produced
an uncanny electronic landscape image with perpetual night and no horizon.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9KWJ9oJImnNp2eQ4EFfzgCcqNW-xyIeQ965qkYLVHW0RiFUfadkcWY-BoWaIn3c2rTHHJZGrUIqB2O4kCIbY9Vn-ILLDeILir05q75X9AgJdppoP6VozTfAn9D15_6TqplF13Z64AQ/w640-h180/V2+explorer+Radar+2+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>1) 31st January - Explorer 1 satellite placed in orbit by a Juno 1 launch vehicle. The Satellite discover the Van Allen radiation belt.</b><br /><b>2) V2 (A4) rocket prepared for launch at Cuxhaven in 1944.</b><br /><b>3) Hurricane viewed on a radar-scope</b><br /><b>4) 'Shadowgram' of atomic bomb victim in Hiroshima. The radiant heat from the detonation changed the surfaces of exposed objects, but the images of some people were preserved where their body had cast a shadow. When these pictures were released after the end of the Second World War it was thought that the deceased had been vaporised, but this is now thought to be unlikely. The uncanny nature of these photographs contributed to the post-war zeitgeist that inspired many science fiction films. <br /><br />X-rays pictures are uncanny not just because they reveal what is normally
hidden but because they are negative images in which structures are ghostly
white shadows seemingly existing in a world of perpetual darkness. Similarly the original technology of r</b></span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">adar is also uncanny,
ahead of the sweeping beam there is a bleak, dark emptiness into which objects
suddenly appear only to gradually fade, their presence briefly sustained by the
electronic circuits that drive the cathode-ray screen - </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span>as if the darkness of extra-terrestrial space was revealed to extend downwards into our everyday lives. Modern radar presents a more acceptable computer-generated image can be rendered as a coloured moving map.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Although
the last cavalry charge in history occurred in the Second World War the conflict
ended with the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear
bombs that used the </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">fundamental forces of nature. They were dropped from B29
aircraft that could touch the edge of the stratosphere. The bombs were
triggered by barometric and radar fuses and the Nagasaki weapon used the
artificial element Plutonium. In the post-war zeitgeist, the fantasies of
Joules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs were replaced by more prescient stories
which urgently indicated that the 'The Age of Improvement' industrial
revolution paradigm was faltering.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgco0DuiU3697W5m191tiikXe_ANmpb5RRXN99_5vxCMgH5WQ3zCvTnKydOxV4mzxUH7U_44L0EorIEeksoDlASew2Lbi8bCGi_TcfmpTo2K7Z9PpvDer2cWFgtgINrNPegsVTEo7uGiw/w640-h224/Science+fiction+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b>The technology of the 20th Century was able to create uncanny images of nature and post- Second World War science suggested possibilities that were unsettling. The 1954 film </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Godzilla</i><b> imagined destruction caused by a primal beast awoken by hydrogen bomb testing and in the same year </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Them! </i><b>depicted monstrously enlarged ants mutated by atomic testing in New Mexico. Free from the restraints of seriousness that apply to art and literature, science fiction films were able to speculate about the changed relationship to nature brought about by science and technology. Whereas <i>Godzilla</i> and <i>Them!</i> employ their own versions of the <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/american-technological-sublime" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">technological sublime</span></a> in there stories, <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> and <i>Les Yeux Sans Visage</i> are inspired by the psychological phenomenon of the uncanny, as described by Sigmund Freud in his <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Uncanny.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">1919 essay.</span></a> The significance of post war science fiction films is that their stories draw from the technological sublime and the uncanny. They suggested that both nature and our human selves could be transformed.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span><span> </span></span><span>In the
1950s science fiction films became the genre through which it was possible to
speculate about our changed relationship with nature because established
cultural forms, art, theatre and 'serious' literature, failed to respond to it.
Journalism reported newsworthy science, but </span><span>without scrutiny of the long-term
cultural significance of its discoveries. Against the background of the
consolidation of the post -war relationship between science and government,
exhibitions such as the 1951 </span><i>Festival of Britain</i><span> </span><span>an</span><span>d Gyorgy Kepes' book </span><i>The
New Landscape in Art and Science </i><span>treated what is now regarded as the start
of the Anthropocene as an extension of the latest stage of modernism.</span></span></p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8F5epmmBr9g4TSFXMJYHPTGUny4KGbs8om87iVa-ZT5yZ2ekXCWmSIJ4FZY3pFVC_HNzXX59wE-aORFt6-jF3W3ckXFydaLpznoYtksFkKhW8uWEUamJ6RbDpMtaru8As3xKvqKRgQ/w640-h176/1950s+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b>1) <i>River Landscape</i> <i>with Apollo and the</i> <i>Cumaean Sibyl</i> - <a href="https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=65050&viewType=detailView" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Salvator Rosa</span></a> (1615-1673)<br />2) <i>No. 46 [Black, Ochre, Red Over Red] </i>- <a href="https://www.moca.org/collection/work/no-46-black-ochre-red-over-red" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Mark Rothko</span></a> (1957)<br />3) Typhoon south-east of Tokyo - photographed by the <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/missions/tiros" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Tiros 5</span></a> satellite.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br /></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For over
200 years landscape art helped to create a shared appreciation of nature. By
the end of the 19th Century civic pride demanded that every city in the
developed world should have a public art gallery providing democratised access
to art-forms <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioavdayxf8n6V9jIuvghtY7UndGmnW5Lg1vc6tpl1n7ue9hEt6_05p5EIxdPenhR0M-GMRQ7uJXM7tq3sZsPsFNBXCL5R2AI0M5VCGSHH5nLXY3Ho5LaxVmIGL9Jh_vFjXBnTn4TvIfA/s1903/Foliage+Infra-Red.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1903" data-original-width="1580" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioavdayxf8n6V9jIuvghtY7UndGmnW5Lg1vc6tpl1n7ue9hEt6_05p5EIxdPenhR0M-GMRQ7uJXM7tq3sZsPsFNBXCL5R2AI0M5VCGSHH5nLXY3Ho5LaxVmIGL9Jh_vFjXBnTn4TvIfA/w332-h400/Foliage+Infra-Red.jpg" width="332" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>A figure concealed by foliage is revealed by<br />infra-red film. While the aesthetics of landscape<br />art and landscape photography remain<br />broadly similar, images of nature created by<br />science tend to be uncanny.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br />originally created for aristocrats. By the 1950s the art world was
too occupied by the challenge of reconciling the aesthetics of the 19th century
with modernism and abstract art to notice that knowledge from science was
replacing familiar representations of nature with uncanny images. As for
science museums, their mission was to try to make the uncanny familiar.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span><span> </span></span>Art
galleries and science museums were once major influences on the perception of
nature. As well as being separate buildings, they owe aesthetic and
intellectual allegiances to different institutions. Art galleries and science
museums symbolise the division of the understanding of nature that was complete
by the end of the 19th century. Subject areas in libraries confirm the separate
identities of 'the two cultures' described by C.P. Snow. <b>(2)</b> Even today
these differences are perpetuated by attitudes that are taught at the earliest
ages in schools. Only the discipline of geography comes close to an
understanding of landscapes that are created by a combination of work, biology,
geology and entropy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In
science there is a putative separation between quantum physics and the older
Newtonian 'classic' worldview that mirrors the supposed division of art into
'abstract' and 'figurative' practices. As 'classic' physics is still used in
engineering and most science, so figurative art (including landscape pictures)
is still popular a hundred years after Cubism. Actual landscapes that have
historically (in landscape art) represented abstract ideas of beauty, the
sublime and the picturesque are now altered by industry, agriculture and
climate change. The transformation is like the uncanny aberrations of nature in
science fiction.</span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpcK8yl0zvJRKWSp3ynQS_zZkp2CHsgFXwneYqcEzuDAWj-Hdo13T1-KOGcChH2kmOr2FK0IHfbRIBdqdZbOOib6uA3Ken0T8irklAcZVUaZw3uV_TP9r8dNttTxmWjGRuDEWXFZThQ/s1417/Cloud+chamber+BW.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1417" data-original-width="1150" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpcK8yl0zvJRKWSp3ynQS_zZkp2CHsgFXwneYqcEzuDAWj-Hdo13T1-KOGcChH2kmOr2FK0IHfbRIBdqdZbOOib6uA3Ken0T8irklAcZVUaZw3uV_TP9r8dNttTxmWjGRuDEWXFZThQ/w163-h200/Cloud+chamber+BW.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Particles made visible</b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b>in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fi6uyyrEs" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">cloud chamber</span></a></b></div></b></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In art,
nature has been represented by landscape pictures and in science by
mathematics. The work </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">of art might be a landscape painting and the scientific
equivalent could be a set of data. A condensed form of a landscape painting
might be a still-life picture and the science equivalent of this could be a
photograph of the tracks of sub-atomic particles in a cloud-chamber. What does
this mean for the role of art in relation to modern media? The popularity of
the </span></span><i style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Blue Planet</i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">television series has been encouraged by digital screens
that have put a cinema into every home. The vibrancy of their colour and the
size of these screens are material determinants that have revolutionised
'nature' documentaries.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Nature
can now be vicariously explored through video. It can be flown over, dived
under and its events are stretched out by slow motion video or compressed by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5eAEXKJRmA" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">time-lapse photography</span></a>. By comparison the landscape pictures lodged in
permanent collections in public galleries around the world can seem quite
moribund, but the new genre of 'infotainment' has not eliminated the divisive
influence of art galleries and science museums. The binary perspectives of
nature as wildlife and nature as physics remain in mass media. How will art
react to our persistently ambiguous definition of 'nature' in the future?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span><span>Art now
exists on a spectrum of engagement. At one end is the multi-millionaire who
collects the work of 'pop star' artists and at the other end is the 'art
worker' employed in community art or art therapy. From being a potential agent
of social change, the Avant Garde has become a marketing vehicle for the
high-end art market. The artists supplying this market are cast as philosopher-</span></span>poets
achieving insight through experimental and extended techniques. For the
majority of art school graduates a career in community arts is a possibility -
enabling the self-expression of individuals from challenging backgrounds.
Between these extremes the more numerous consumers of art continue to receive
the tradition of landscape art as 'heritage'.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-UIres37qJlyTECtuTwElGGTo3yY-kodgpwd-PvhC3N6AOjt6t2cYkQGRonTwZ5-h2ANr2yiz1_NCU2i3m5jHxGzkxfZS-BGyspOJ_GNausIEGKSa053EjL_KaCPsTjrfjnES3S8iw/s3256/ARTIFICIAL+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="3256" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-UIres37qJlyTECtuTwElGGTo3yY-kodgpwd-PvhC3N6AOjt6t2cYkQGRonTwZ5-h2ANr2yiz1_NCU2i3m5jHxGzkxfZS-BGyspOJ_GNausIEGKSa053EjL_KaCPsTjrfjnES3S8iw/w640-h190/ARTIFICIAL+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b>1) Chloroplasts, the site of photosynthesis in plants. Genetic engineering could increase their </b><br /><b>efficiency by 20% - creating the possibility of enhanced removal of C02 from the atmosphere.</b><br /><b>2) Meat from cells cultured in a laboratory.</b><br /><b>3) Thermonuclear fusion in the </b><a href="https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/MAST-Upgrade-achieves-first-plasma" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">MAST 'spherical' tokamak</span></a><b> at Culham in Oxfordshire.</b><br /><br /><b>We may be living during a 'hinge period' of history as revolutionary as the renaissance. The 20th century revealed hidden nature as if it were a dream, and the 21st century the means to undo the accidental changes brought about in nature could bring large areas of the world under artificial control. Just as renaissance art, exploration and science were related, so the Anthropocene era will require the cultural identity of nature to be a subject for art.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 21st
Century will be defined by climate change and the domination of ecosystems by
agriculture (the Anthropocene) <b>(3) </b>and the ability to edit DNA,
transform ecosystems and use energy from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP2aV26X-70" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">thermonuclear fusion</span></a> to remove carbon
dioxide from the air (the technological sublime). As societies face choices
about climate change, synthetic biology and geoengineering, art will offer a
contemplative space in which to consider evolving interactions of artificiality
and nature. Equivalents to landscape art will emerge as the world becomes more
like science fiction.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;"><a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/10762175-utopias-10-landscape-and-science-fiction" target="_blank">https://www.blurb.com/b/10762175-utopias-10-landscape-and-science-fiction</a><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>(1)</b> Briggs, Asa. The Age of Improvement. London: Longman, 1959. Print. History of England (Longman ).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>(2) </b>Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. London: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print. Rede Lecture; 1959.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>(3)</b> <a href="https://futureearth.org/publications/anthropocene-magazine/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">https://futureearth.org/publications/anthropocene-magazine/</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLRCjJBl9iW4lya0GexaWuIOwuKFWNkEU9T6OoIZ0RzM4amlYJqI6bDOCaxjprNXvN7r8S6Ww4zn04CNQYMY6k4CVgEK-6gSDg97hYnEr95KCttVwzBEc97aYYamin03paUXm4ZNwW6g/s1923/Salcombe+02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="1923" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLRCjJBl9iW4lya0GexaWuIOwuKFWNkEU9T6OoIZ0RzM4amlYJqI6bDOCaxjprNXvN7r8S6Ww4zn04CNQYMY6k4CVgEK-6gSDg97hYnEr95KCttVwzBEc97aYYamin03paUXm4ZNwW6g/s320/Salcombe+02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt 252.0pt 288.0pt 324.0pt 360.0pt 396.0pt 432.0pt 468.0pt 504.0pt 540.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/teams-engineer-complex-human-tissues-win-top-prizes-in-nasa-challenge" target="_blank">https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/teams-engineer-complex-human-tissues-win-top-prizes-in-nasa-challenge</a><br /></p><br /><p></p></div>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-3758202487903499912021-05-21T20:32:00.002+01:002021-06-08T15:13:54.822+01:00Utopias - 9<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQW2RuyZsV4aCBTfqH14dU4-mMQxEI68TYvKqkJEu3ig8pWMeGrfUGO_UKKVMQhJpdWdsleLYuXZVRj13e4QoKRWsIqbGqztsXXsTargZ9j7kzXLgVVnxnTcLzUxP3Gs04ZyWwzI2YA/s1807/Utopias+-+9+FRONT+COVER.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1807" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQW2RuyZsV4aCBTfqH14dU4-mMQxEI68TYvKqkJEu3ig8pWMeGrfUGO_UKKVMQhJpdWdsleLYuXZVRj13e4QoKRWsIqbGqztsXXsTargZ9j7kzXLgVVnxnTcLzUxP3Gs04ZyWwzI2YA/w400-h333/Utopias+-+9+FRONT+COVER.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span>On the 26th September 1991, a team of four men and four women, watched by international press and television reporters, sealed themselves into what was essentially a huge terrarium called Biosphere 2. Built over three years at a site in Oracle, Arizona, the project was expected to demonstrate that a working scale-model of the Earth's biosphere could sustain a space colony with not just food but also air and water. The air-tight environment was built on the scale of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. To emulate the </span><br />
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgWzxwM_TUTXRYKYNNzbQBrV7U-xT2YX-XqjQPuObPssWKQpxJMxoLflsEOkkMxhnzCSnzd1fqNzVvXOmUPozbrjEHGSAjYtDk-SyEhbmr8jzsDdlEAAlYIGqwgIrYt88Zs_Lck9T8wg/s1600/Biosphere+2+Bio.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="772" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgWzxwM_TUTXRYKYNNzbQBrV7U-xT2YX-XqjQPuObPssWKQpxJMxoLflsEOkkMxhnzCSnzd1fqNzVvXOmUPozbrjEHGSAjYtDk-SyEhbmr8jzsDdlEAAlYIGqwgIrYt88Zs_Lck9T8wg/s320/Biosphere+2+Bio.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"></blockquote><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Biosphere 2. The sealed environment was</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>divided i</b><b>nto sections called 'biomes' and</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>can be regarded as a research facility to</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>t</b><b>est the viability of future self- supporting</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>space </b><b>colonies and as a conceptual</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>art </b><b>project foregrounding the complexity</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>of our </b><b>biological and a</b><b>gricultural world.</b></div></b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">entirety of the biological world the 1.27 hectare enclosure was covered by a glass and steel space-frame and divided into areas; rain-forest, ocean (with a coral reef), mangrove marsh, savanna, fog desert and an agricultural area. </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Biosphere 2 was the home for the volunteers for two years during which time they had to grow all their own food, undertake a host of scientific measurements and (paradoxically) maintain the wilderness areas. The atmosphere was monitored every 15 minutes by 2000 sensors and the entire artificial environment was controlled by a computer and a nearby 'mission control'. Periods of rain were programmed and artificial waves created in the 'ocean'. Distinct climatic zones were emulated in different sections by heating, cooling, drying and humidifying the air.</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83SbgBJwtxCWWqIMNA5hkR1MNnrx7i4MSWWpqIJExfEMq-fEbo5FhyphenhyphenbZVUYg36dFZZEiW9r_88maXI2-Ixm0Mjd09WnxSHgxWHUyntqeukg-roNbShD-8xaAOI85O4UeHM9JQxjOC4w/s1600/Bios+3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="800" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83SbgBJwtxCWWqIMNA5hkR1MNnrx7i4MSWWpqIJExfEMq-fEbo5FhyphenhyphenbZVUYg36dFZZEiW9r_88maXI2-Ixm0Mjd09WnxSHgxWHUyntqeukg-roNbShD-8xaAOI85O4UeHM9JQxjOC4w/s200/Bios+3.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bios 3 underground <br />research facility in<br />Krasnoyarsk, Russia<br />Between 1972 and 1984 three <br />people were able to live in <br />the 315 cubic metre<br />sealed environment with<br />25 % of oxygen supplied <br />by algae and wheat plants.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> <span style="font-size: large;">The designers of Biosphere 2 attempted to encapsulate as many of the physical aspects of the Earth as possible. It was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS-3"><span style="color: red;">not the first</span></a> experiment to use algae or plants to keep humans alive in a closed environment, but it was the first attempt at making a working model of the Earth's biosphere. In 1979 James Lovelock proposed that the totality of Earth systems form a self-regulating whole, which he named Gaia. <b>(1)</b> Although photosynthesising oxygen, Biosphere 2 could not maintain temperatures as Earth systems do, and so the project used extensive underground air-management systems run by a gas-powered energy unit. </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Biosphere 2 was subsequently criticised for being unscientific because the 'biospherian' crew were not all qualified as scientists. This judgement ignored the fact that the first astronauts were test-pilots. The <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/SP-402/sp402.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Skylab solar telescope</span></a> was operated from 1973 to 1974 for hundreds of hours by astronauts who were not astronomers. It was also suggested that the project pursued a subjective 'new age' agenda. Some biospherians were from a performance background and they had previously worked with the designers of Biosphere 2, businessman and inventor Ed Bass and 'systems ecologist' John P. Allen, at a counter-cultural community known as the <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergia_Ranch" target="_blank">Synergia Ranch</a> </span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAj-fLE42nZBh4Z_FOv3CS6EN9cZKB_AijkS4q87I74tIgsBTn3_LW7q3YHIPTVT1V1TM5qufg-F-3oKiULB0-mK9T6xBRTKLBS4fPFhZYns6oz1pW8vmfhtFJdxMTIHsmSgQ8QJcI7w/s1600/Expo+67.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="644" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAj-fLE42nZBh4Z_FOv3CS6EN9cZKB_AijkS4q87I74tIgsBTn3_LW7q3YHIPTVT1V1TM5qufg-F-3oKiULB0-mK9T6xBRTKLBS4fPFhZYns6oz1pW8vmfhtFJdxMTIHsmSgQ8QJcI7w/s200/Expo+67.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>The United States pavilion<br />at the Expo 67 fair in Quebec.<br />Buckminster Fuller pioneered<br />the use of geodesic domes as<br />efficient structures covering<br />the greatest volume with the<br />optimum about of material</b>. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">This overlapping of interests came from the zeitgeist of the 1960s. Inspired by the work of Buckminster Fuller, Ed Bass and John Allen were influenced by the concept of 'design science exploration' which resists categorisation as either architecture or engineering and emphasizes the application of ingenuity over the marshaling of huge resources. Instead of regarding Biosphere 2 as a single experiment that could succeed or fail, it is more appropriate to understand it as a laboratory for multiple investigations. <b>(2)</b> The project could even fit within the definition of art, as chosen by Susan Sontag.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">In her 1965 essay One culture and the new sensibility. Sontag wrote that the function of art was "giving pleasure and educating conscience and sensibility." Biosphere 2 may sit at the end of a spectrum of creations that might be considered art. The situation of its occupants was similar to that of the crew of a submarine as they lived with a fixed volume of air. Their personal effects had to be vetted as soap, shampoo, paint or glue that contained chemicals that could accumulate in the air were not allowed. This issue, along with many others raised by living in a microcosm, commented on life in the real world. Biosphere 2 blurred the distinction between science, engineering and performance art.</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82YXPsGWNgx5I6psL9h27klyVzmJ9HwF4DeIfrtM_C3gVkcODcvqxk4kXe4iOT7375w2cBx-LFHI-5Gbm1OkozAZZ0Ih7HaB60Vw2xuAIF1DClrZbZ4dGwGn6V7fm5PPV6rwYNFT1fg/s1600/BIOSPHERE+2+TEXT.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="1600" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82YXPsGWNgx5I6psL9h27klyVzmJ9HwF4DeIfrtM_C3gVkcODcvqxk4kXe4iOT7375w2cBx-LFHI-5Gbm1OkozAZZ0Ih7HaB60Vw2xuAIF1DClrZbZ4dGwGn6V7fm5PPV6rwYNFT1fg/s640/BIOSPHERE+2+TEXT.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>1. The Intensive Agriculture Biome in which the 'biospherian' crew produced their food.</b><br /><b>2. The display screen on which data from 2000 sensors was displayed.</b><br /><b>3. Although the ambition of Biosphere 2 was to emulate the process by which oxygen is replenished in the air by plants, it was necessary to use extensive electrical and mechanical systems to control temperate, create rainfall, control salinity of water bodies, remove algae from the 'rivers' and 'seas', as well as pumping water. The systems were monitored by engineers in</b><br /><b>a nearby control centre, but maintained by the isolating crew.<br />4. The wilderness area was also maintained by the crew, pointing towards the 21st century when even non-cultivated areas may need to be helped to adapt to climate change.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-size: large;">The single greatest achievement of Biosphere 2 was to clarify the relationship between people and the actual biosphere. By attempting to live in a minuscule version of the entirety of Earth systems, the project highlighted problems that we face today. Population growth has changed the ratio of space that is occupied by humans, relative to wilderness, so as to approach that of biosphere 2. We can no longer assume that waste is diluted by air and water to a level of insignificance. Human influence on Earth systems has increased to such a degree that we are now in a new geological era, the Anthropocene, </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div></div><span style="font-size: large;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6-HKHoKYOVrfW5tmjTgyRY9pHBux0qGFDH2xdKJglEbLcIsriQDOs-03a1x8MO0uuwFAm_WUe4i5vcrKBSrnZpiW9-66yWJrDjJTOwoIEy66fxLm6HLJvZWTQjr9hyE5qUn2ZQkgWw/s1417/Anthropocene+Diamond+Mine+small.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1131" data-original-width="1417" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6-HKHoKYOVrfW5tmjTgyRY9pHBux0qGFDH2xdKJglEbLcIsriQDOs-03a1x8MO0uuwFAm_WUe4i5vcrKBSrnZpiW9-66yWJrDjJTOwoIEy66fxLm6HLJvZWTQjr9hyE5qUn2ZQkgWw/w205-h162/Anthropocene+Diamond+Mine+small.jpg" width="205" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>Diamond mining. From the<br />first creation of ceramics<br />26,000 years ago, exploitation<br />of resources has expanded<br />to such an extent that<br /> humans can now be regarded<br /> as a geological force<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table>Within the limited definition of nature that excludes physics it is evident that economic activity is the main cause of species extinction. Within the wider definition of nature that includes physics; the change to the heat balance of the Earth caused by industrial carbon dioxide and methane <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJb82qI-lbI0BlWCTHjYHAZiLxQotjssWoHumAvoX3JE65TEuDTgcXQ5AjOckIfMPWUYpYFyqCnDEbkHnR2CB9GHf_Rt9N0N47gN9QW7hSfNh4GMVKOV5jOFPcQzHAkPt2xXXmxiB6A/s2048/Open+cast+mine+Bohemia.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1689" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJb82qI-lbI0BlWCTHjYHAZiLxQotjssWoHumAvoX3JE65TEuDTgcXQ5AjOckIfMPWUYpYFyqCnDEbkHnR2CB9GHf_Rt9N0N47gN9QW7hSfNh4GMVKOV5jOFPcQzHAkPt2xXXmxiB6A/w210-h256/Open+cast+mine+Bohemia.jpg" width="210" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>Open cast mine in Bohemia.<br />Humans move more material<br />around the Earth than glaciers<br />and rivers</b>. </td></tr></tbody></table>emissions; and the discovery that humans move more material through mining, dredging and construction than the action of glaciers and rivers, means that </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">humans are now a geological force on a planetary scale. During the first two 'missions' of biosphere 2 the crew had to manage every area of the space including the ocean, and the wilderness area. Their situation was similar to ours today.</span></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span>The extent of environmental transformation and of global warming may require change not only to our modes of industry and agriculture but also the management of what used to be regarded as wilderness. Climate change may occur faster than plant species can migrate. The capacity to move bio-communities by transplanting species will be explored.</span><b>(3)</b><span> A more radical option would be to use CRISPR gene editing to adapt plants to new climates, or even increase the efficiency of photosynthesis so as to remove more carbon dioxide from the air. It is possible that we are already creating new species and driving evolution by changing environments. </span></span></div><div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An arena will open up between the <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture"><span style="color: red;">permaculture</span></a> </span>ideal of leaving as little trace on the Earth as possible and the technological ethos of genetic editing and geoengineering projects to mitigate climate change. Biosphere 2 presaged today's need for nuanced consideration of the interaction between artifice and nature - art that is not <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-for-your-pleasure-1970-online" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">'moral journalism'</span></a>. In the 20th century a shared conception of landscape fragmented as nature disappeared into the laboratory and artists ended the distinction between content and style. The cultural baggage of landscape art; the sublime, the picturesque, numinist and symbolist imagery, was largely forgotten. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WZiX_nVD3IoxPpu2WjtGjUQDXHKjLr_OXQQVD078oDFr-KFcl0ALtk6AOE0vel_RRJ59DrUoeQ5PjxPf0jiDrFx_CWxBkR5jHU0w9fgPDtB45JMq02jEKQVXxUiRUayzCBVg6PpX9Q/s1600/Bubblechamber.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WZiX_nVD3IoxPpu2WjtGjUQDXHKjLr_OXQQVD078oDFr-KFcl0ALtk6AOE0vel_RRJ59DrUoeQ5PjxPf0jiDrFx_CWxBkR5jHU0w9fgPDtB45JMq02jEKQVXxUiRUayzCBVg6PpX9Q/s640/Bubblechamber.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQpiJpUOY-_KwJ9KvRWV4m8mEXXsnoGVjUMJK53rFpG-eP8S1ir5ruE0yLAL6WcCDTPni5sbaFgSWYXMJbuI1pV9E2qsQf7SJRmTZwy7aBJoS9olOYgYrhceRI8pHEt0uyAE4mAZWZYw/s640/Bluepoles.jpg" /></a><br /><b>TOP: Sub-atomic particles revealed in a bubble-chamber. The paths of the emerging particles are only partially constrained by the magnetic field within the walls of the chamber.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>BOTTOM: <i>Blue Poles</i> by Jackson Pollock. His method of applying paint to a horizontal canvas on the floor of his studio created an 'all over' effect suggesting that the pictures are a small window on a greater field, seething with energy. Pollock's 'action' paintings often seem to resent the limiting borders of the canvas.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Since the Renaissance art and science have gradually drifted apart, with a few notable exceptions. For a few years in the period of impressionist painting it appeared that some artists' interests in the perception of colour overlapped with scientists' investigations of light. Some commentators have seen links between Einsteins theory of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1578661?seq=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">relativity and cubist art</span></a>. Art came to concentrate more closely on subjective experiences as physics delved ever deeper into nature at the level of the sub-atomic. The divergence of art and science is illustrated by the </b><a href="https://medium.com/designscience/1951-c37a7ceb6aae" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Festival Pattern Group</span></a><b> which was tasked with using images from x-ray crystallography to inspire work for the 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition. The studies that the group made resulted in designs they were used for craft and not art (as defined by contemporary art critics and galleries).</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jackson Pollock's belie</span>f that abstract expressionist painting resulted from a relationship between the creative process and fundamental aspects of nature relates to the title of Leo Szilard's paper "On the decrease of entropy in a thermodynamic system by the intervention of intelligent beings". His paintings suggest the emergence of significant forms created from energy. Photographs of sub-atomic particles and Pollock's painting suggest the limitless and therefore sublime aspect of nature.</b></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><br /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyCg6SE6Ww8dhyphenhyphenboUOIekB_N6E4VyHj2Czvv6bEs7pjBOxKl3oV8cdA9mjv8E0HAIOhZM7n4dbl_XW3zYZNdNVbP96cKqaW2WUtctjMksm84g6ZhMIPE5gj-mcWHR1dMJEJ8Ie9puoaQ/w640-h174/Cool+land+art+copy.jpg" /><br /><b>1. </b><b>Michael </b><b>Heizer - <i>Double Negative</i> - </b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Mormon Mesa, northwest of Overton, Nevada in 1969-70<span style="color: #777777;">.</span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2. </b><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Michael Heizer - <i>displaced</i>/<i>rep</i></b></span></span><b><i>laced</i></b><b style="font-family: inherit;"> <i>mass</i> . Nevada. 1969</b></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #211922;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Michael Heizer -<i> Circular Surface drawing </i>- El Mirage Dry Lake, Mojave Desert, CA (ephemeral tracks created by motorcycle)</span></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="color: #211922;">Land art constructions in the desert of the United States were a relisation of new directions in art that Susan Sontag </b><span style="color: #211922;"><b>described</b></span><b style="color: #211922;"> in her 1965 essay one culture and the new sensibility. </b><span style="color: #211922;"><b>Deliberately</b></span><b style="color: #211922;"> avoiding the emotional and cultural associations of landscape art, the constructions display a cool aloofness associated with conceptual art. Philosophers such as Hegel have argued that the beauty of ideas would </b><span style="color: #211922;"><b>eventually</b></span><b style="color: #211922;"> replace the need for visual art, but Land Art, while classifiable as conceptual art, escapes from this ideological cage by existing more as photographs and films/videos than pure ideas related by words. Pictures of land art constructions provide an aesthetic pleasure of their own, while the original creations continue to exist. Apart from ephemeral land art, the sites of these works can be regarded as both destinations for a pilgrimage and a touristic visitor attraction, like preserved Hollywood sets that become theme parks.</b></span></span></div><h2 class="text-align-center" style="background-color: white; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;"> </b><b style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;"> </b></span></h2><div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>For art historians, the post-modern 'coolness' of the land art </span>movement in the 1970s was full-stop to the genre of landscape art, but</span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> it took place against a background</span> of political turmoil. Robert Smithson produced his </span><span>project </span><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-smithson-4541/lost-art-robert-smithson" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: red;">Partially Buried Woodshed</span></i></a><span> at Kent State University in January 1970. Later </span>that year on the campus nine students were shot and four were killed by members<span> of the National Guard during a Vietnam War protest. </span>The emergence of the environmental movement from the Vietnam War protests was stimulated by the use of defoliant chemicals to deny cover for the Vietcong army. The dioxin by-product in the 'agent orange' sprayed by aircraft over huge areas left a toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic legacy. </span></div><div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgRFZ7VJEO4yTkOgKi6XMXTMGkL-kTOuFjR_LwbDgj77a3piIjTzjjrhhGhyphenhyphen5LMau4plUiQa9JAvHQRqXmK4psJ3yns8dSLE0PPGkV37r2blji22GUJNUDe36D4zyRqJPf4c7AeoHqQ/s1600/Kent+State+-+Smithson+Woodshed+TEXT+copy.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="1600" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgRFZ7VJEO4yTkOgKi6XMXTMGkL-kTOuFjR_LwbDgj77a3piIjTzjjrhhGhyphenhyphen5LMau4plUiQa9JAvHQRqXmK4psJ3yns8dSLE0PPGkV37r2blji22GUJNUDe36D4zyRqJPf4c7AeoHqQ/s640/Kent+State+-+Smithson+Woodshed+TEXT+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>1. </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Partially buried woodshed </i><b>- An early land art experiment created at Kent State University by Robert Smithson January 1970.</b><br /><b>2. Kent state University 4th May 1970. Four students were killed and nine students were wounded by the Ohio National Guard during a Vietnam War protest.</b><br /><b>3. Aircraft spraying 'agent orange' defoliant in Vietnam. </b><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The unforeseen juxtaposition of Robert Smithson's </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">partially buried woodshed</i><b> and the shooting of thirteen students at Kent State University in the same year is a painful reminder that art does not operate in a vacuum, isolated from the society that ultimately funds it and provides an audience for it. The land art 'movement' of the 1970s was an implicit elision of landscape art that was associated with conservative values and privilege. Abstract art that occupied the attention of the art world between impressionism and the 1970s was influenced by the idea that </b><b>aesthetic feelings for non-representational compositions arose from shared psychological processes, not dependent on race or class, that could contribute to 'universal' values that were implicitly socialist in nature. Before the Second World Was several abstract artists including Piet Mondrian and to a lesser extent Jackson Pollock took the idea of the psychological basis of creativity much further by involvement in the the quasi-religion<span style="color: red;"> </span></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy_and_visual_arts#Mondrian" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Theosophy</span></a></span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Identifying the dividing line between mysticism and a poetic response to nature will remain a challenge for artists in the 21st century.</span> </b></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">In this century <a href="https://www.iter.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">thermonuclear fusion</span></a> could generate enough electricity to sequester carbon dioxide from the air. On a scale far greater than the defoliation of trees in Vietnam, the project would reverse global warming and allow us to release the gas at the onset of a future ice-age. Having a hand on the world's thermostat, we would be essentially 'flying the planet'. In the 21st century art cannot be limited to the rhetoric of protest movements. It could elucidate what we mean by the word 'nature' in a world shaped by synthetic biology and geoengineering.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span><a href="https://reviverestore.org/" target="_blank">BRINGING BIOTECHNOLOGIES TO CONSERVATION</a><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2273516-living-robots-made-from-frog-skin-cells-can-sense-their-environment/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2f_aUKRR_gAXaOAZaUcnP2FAlcPUQVGp6s_XmdQzHZw1JU4QleEU9_W8I#Echobox=1617218484" target="_blank">Living robots from skin cells</a><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2272899-artificial-life-made-in-lab-can-grow-and-divide-like-natural-bacteria/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0RRHixxgttOVDJ_zBKz983shPlKXFxUZ-vCBCP7bPvQTOcoyuvxgGtMeM#Echobox=1617145801" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Artificial life made in a laboratory</span></a><br /></div><br /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwnhPwlVqC8W7txhZBrFyB6UKd6Sd9d8r5BK92N64gYD5R06BmicSkrvv4ojJvcnG2MTUeETweGrLTNwpbOuS93XS5lVYVDDfzWXMJuWINqlwt7SJCb7o1BBeBABbHStdBmOrn7W3gA/w640-h168/Artificial+Life+Landscape+copy.jpg" /><br /><b>1.Chloroplasts are the sites of photosynthesis in plants. They are controlled by genes that may be edited in the future so as to increase the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 20%.</b></div><div><b>2<span style="color: red;">. </span></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Lancelot 'Capability' Brown</span></a><b><span style="color: red;"> </span> championed the practice of creating idealised landscapes within the estates of wealthy landowners. The modification of landscapes to match the ideal of romanticised <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_painting" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">landscape paintings</span></a> was eventually extended to great public parks such as Central Park in New York. In the 21st century it may be considered necessary to modify what is currently regarded as natural bio-communities so as to adapt them to climate change and extract more carbon dioxide from the air.</b></div><div><b>3. In 1952 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Miller" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Stanley Miller</span></a> created compounds associated with living organisms by passing an electric charge through a flask containing a mixture of gasses created to emulate the atmosphere of the Earth soon after its formation. </b></div><div><b>4. After Stanley Miller's experiments created the basic building blocks of life it was briefly thought that life could be created in a 'second genesis' in the laboratory. This has proved to be beyond present capabilities, but radical modifications of existing cells with entirely<span style="color: red;"> </span></b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2272899-artificial-life-made-in-lab-can-grow-and-divide-like-natural-bacteria/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0RRHixxgttOVDJ_zBKz983shPlKXFxUZ-vCBCP7bPvQTOcoyuvxgGtMeM#Echobox=1617145801" style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">synthesised genes</span></a><b> has been accomplished. Although there is a large gap between Stanley Miller's creation of chemical precursors to life and the modification of existing cells, the cultural significance of the changing distinctions between naturally occurring systems and engineered systems will be a major subject for art in the 21st century. </b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/what-climate-engineering#:~:text=Climate%20engineering%20is%20the%20intentional,solar%20energy%20back%20to%20space." target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Climate engineering</span></a><br /><div><b>. </b></div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWr-GhnJvsBwcQj8ifAtchYuW3y956rHqqnwUI3_3RdfyEPDLEYVpkaAtxvYU4VKlJSlThLIPkr66DNZA_UG_tD0X_U7RdhxQMYCb6KTBCDFjOV6BmMTRy_zD10UnUVw78Pxuh_z7RKw/s945/5-8-12+107+small+bw+crop+HC.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="945" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWr-GhnJvsBwcQj8ifAtchYuW3y956rHqqnwUI3_3RdfyEPDLEYVpkaAtxvYU4VKlJSlThLIPkr66DNZA_UG_tD0X_U7RdhxQMYCb6KTBCDFjOV6BmMTRy_zD10UnUVw78Pxuh_z7RKw/w640-h373/5-8-12+107+small+bw+crop+HC.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The choices that are
to be made i</span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">n the 21st century
around climate </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">change and the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/anthropocene/" target="_blank">Anthropocene</a> are </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">creating a need for
an art </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">of nature that moves
on from </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">the traditions of
landscape art to </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">respond to evolving
values around </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">artifice and naturalness.
One </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">challenge will be to
remain </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">distinct from
both new-age </span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">mysticism
and techno-utopianism. </span></b></div></h3>
</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> <br /><br /><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div><b><u>References from main text:</u></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>(1) Lovelock, James. Gaia : A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979. </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>(2) Alling, Abigail., Mark. Nelson, and Sally. Silverstone. Life under Glass : The inside Story of Biosphere 2. Oracle, AZ: Biosphere, 1993</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>(3) <a href="https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/07/how-to-plant-the-forests-of-the-future/" target="_blank">https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/07/how-to-plant-the-forests-of-the-future/</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10438639-utopias-9-flying-the-planet" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">Utopias - 9 on the blurb</span> <span style="color: red;">website</span></span></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-5262469229062157152021-03-06T17:00:00.003+00:002021-03-23T13:50:49.182+00:00Books on Blurb<p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><u>All my books published on the 'Blurb' website.</u></span></b></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias – 9</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10438639-utopias-9-flying-the-planet<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias – 8</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10025068-utopias-8">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10025068-utopias-8</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias – 7</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/9338609-utopias-7">http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/9338609-utopias-7</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">ZXZ</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/9026406-zxz<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias – 6</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><u><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8713591-utopias-6">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8713591-utopias-6</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Portfolio</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8698832-portfolio-john-stockton">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8698832-portfolio-john-stockton</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Plato’s Cave</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8690233-untitled"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8690233-untitled</span></a></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Plastic</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7920835-plastic<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">PETROL</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7910512-petrol<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias 5</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7855275-utopias-5<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Utopias 4</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7761596-utopias-4">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7761596-utopias-4</a></span></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;"><br /></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">A Year of Weather</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3045458-a-year-of-weather"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3045458-a-year-of-weather</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">SCANS</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.com/b/3634866-scans">h</a></span></span><a href="http://www.blurb.com/b/3634866-scans" style="font-size: large;">w.blurb.com/b/3634866-scans</a><a href="http://www.blurb.com/b/3634866-scans" style="font-size: large;">ttp://ww</a></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>FAUXSCAPE</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/3980480"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/3980480</b></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">6x6</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/4064859-6x6"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/4064859-6x6</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">UTOPIAS -3</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7359619-utopias-3"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7359619-utopias-3</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">UTOPIAS -2</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6669424-utopias-2">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6669424-utopias-2</a><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">UTOPIAS -1</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Anthropocene
Desiderata</span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata"><b>http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-60383669772993499952020-08-04T18:59:00.001+01:002021-03-23T14:30:07.000+00:00Utopias - 8 Artifice and nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmzCREKJDMsE5VqIj8vcOmnqF4qn9aTinsSRFetHbI-Io-1hIvv0BKwwvGAvdEowy4kcsVWKapdVJ6lQJOrEbBClVmpK47SnKvYS8bt1moNrDnTBWj20WpD-NO5UamIOdShcxi0xKNw/s1600/Utopias+8+front+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="835" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmzCREKJDMsE5VqIj8vcOmnqF4qn9aTinsSRFetHbI-Io-1hIvv0BKwwvGAvdEowy4kcsVWKapdVJ6lQJOrEbBClVmpK47SnKvYS8bt1moNrDnTBWj20WpD-NO5UamIOdShcxi0xKNw/s400/Utopias+8+front+COVER.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10025068-utopias-8">Utopias - 8 on Blurb</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Saturday 17th March 2001 two British newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent carried two different but equally remarkable photographs on their front pages. Over the Guardian headline " The news from Ground Zero: foot and mouth is </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ix_-G7dQLzXaJv_fsZ2myV7NJR83FOAx8X6j80OCmezT8_rWtarT6A1diKTBBm9WVes8HNjP-ft-szFuzWjKIiueKdSjLJr2m7WWw_h9rrOHWu0_fBDpWsQrzSrPex1RHHaTXkHFJA/s1600/1645_001+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="1543" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ix_-G7dQLzXaJv_fsZ2myV7NJR83FOAx8X6j80OCmezT8_rWtarT6A1diKTBBm9WVes8HNjP-ft-szFuzWjKIiueKdSjLJr2m7WWw_h9rrOHWu0_fBDpWsQrzSrPex1RHHaTXkHFJA/s320/1645_001+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">winning." a photograph of dead cattle on a pyre presents an almost apocalyptic vision of the efforts to cull and dispose of cattle that were either diseased or at risk of infection from the foot and mouth virus. The dead animals are piled upside down and their burnt hides seen in the compressed telephoto perspective would resemble a volcanic landscape if it were not for protruding legs and hooves silhouetted against smoke, coloured orange by the glowing fire. Tongues of flame curl upwards between the blackened carcasses.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkZUCcFFESQaNwMKzRD__OYSWTUZfuhDQa4gVIXM77XyBy1ila9ZmdPqp7zB9Gk_V7k4fEwcF528VrekRNZTWfpSHo47AJKljuwkACVuaaoxIun3kKFRNsEVkNFX72k64Fe-B8rVL3ng/s1600/Independent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1292" data-original-width="1600" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkZUCcFFESQaNwMKzRD__OYSWTUZfuhDQa4gVIXM77XyBy1ila9ZmdPqp7zB9Gk_V7k4fEwcF528VrekRNZTWfpSHo47AJKljuwkACVuaaoxIun3kKFRNsEVkNFX72k64Fe-B8rVL3ng/s320/Independent.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Independent newspaper also had a front page story about the foot and mouth epidemic but above the headline there is a photograph of the newly opened Eden Project education centre and 'eco-park'. Situated in a former open-cast china clay pit at Bodelva near St Austell in Cornwall, eight geodesic domes are visible nestled in the transformed industrial site. The photo-caption calls the project a 'Man-made Eden' and the expectant image contrasts with the gloom of the foot and mouth epidemic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although highly infectious, the FMD virus does not kill most of the cattle it infects but it does inflict painful sores, reduced weight and milk yield, as if to sabotage the work of farmers. The modern long-distance transportation of animals helps the disease to spread. Coming after the </span><span style="font-size: large;">BSE crisis, caused by feeding animal protein to herbivorous cattle, the two farming emergencies suggest transgression on the part of humans, like 'The Fall' reputed to have occurred in the legendary Garden of Eden. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The two photographs are very different from the vision of nature and agriculture in the tradition of landscape art. The piles of incinerated animals suggest a breach of an implicit contract between humans and nature. (1) The aesthetics of landscape art often suggested a relationship between farmers and the providence of the natural world. In the Independent photograph of the Eden Project the site looks like a futuristic moon-base translocated to a misty Cornish landscape. Inside the domes, that conform to the undulating ground like bubbles, flora from all of the world thrive. The Eden Project addresses the separation of consumers from nature and displays it in a global context, which was never within the scope of landscape artists who only ever depicted localised views, whether picturesque or sublime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The artist Robert Smithson wanted to use industrially disrupted landscapes, like the china clay pit at Bodelva, to make site-specific projects. Although originally called Earth Art, early Land Art was not synonymous with ecology. Smithson tried to create art without cultural precedent, but Land Art was part of a 20th century ambition of artists to supersede views of nature. . When Piet Modrian wrote "by means of abstraction art has interiorized form and colour" (2) he implied that art should no longer be constrained by nature. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the 1950s Jackson Pollock made this idea explicit when he created abstract paintings that he believed to be expressions of psychological states. By placing canvases on his studio floor Pollock adopted a paint-dripping technique, producing an 'all over' effect that resembles the contemporary photographs of the paths of sub-atomic particles in bubble-chamber experiments.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNrNOzS3nzBEOUuiOv8SbOQjrvs36iSrZags_x03XpSkhKoXMIIttaeiruekBaw5v57NZz6iwKwdjn0KrpeBShzQjhJhcSm0Q0V4YRRpUxj6zFH99Usuf5eCDbJI8Rm9ZDdZgqg5lvw/s1600/Bubblechamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="600" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNrNOzS3nzBEOUuiOv8SbOQjrvs36iSrZags_x03XpSkhKoXMIIttaeiruekBaw5v57NZz6iwKwdjn0KrpeBShzQjhJhcSm0Q0V4YRRpUxj6zFH99Usuf5eCDbJI8Rm9ZDdZgqg5lvw/s640/Bubblechamber.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Other artists made abstract paintings on a scale that could barely fit in a gallery. In the 1970s Land Art continued this development by leaving the gallery altogether and used the landscape itself as a medium for sculpture. Smithson's early experiments in Land Art were 'non-sites' that twinned a chosen remote location with a gallery exhibiting photographs, drawings and samples of material from the site. </span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWtVB4xoH1YI1_7U0O4OjZDuDE-1lqrCQ1bc7w0oZjU82VJhrGWLDc2XOeVfyI3kq1k-Gs35iUSfSNxdrVqujkBUY5UX4NksHXqo4gC5pggY_Oh7p6d0Eqhx3_SjTlEIiNjPb3H-Lcw/s1600/Michael+Heizer%25E2%2580%2599s+Circular+Surface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1098" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWtVB4xoH1YI1_7U0O4OjZDuDE-1lqrCQ1bc7w0oZjU82VJhrGWLDc2XOeVfyI3kq1k-Gs35iUSfSNxdrVqujkBUY5UX4NksHXqo4gC5pggY_Oh7p6d0Eqhx3_SjTlEIiNjPb3H-Lcw/s200/Michael+Heizer%25E2%2580%2599s+Circular+Surface.jpg" width="136" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Michael Heizer’s </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Circular Surface, </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Planar DIsplacement </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Drawing in </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>El Mirage Dry Lake.</b></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">Starting with small interventions in the landscape (incisions, pouringof tar and inserting poles) Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson and</span><span style="font-size: large;">Walter De Maria went on to make varied projects that were united by an insistent bravura that challenged the process by which art objects are legitimised, the art gallery and the collector. These constructions, excavations and installations were made at desert locations so remote that, realisticaly, the main audience for these pieces would only ever see them in photographs. The photographic documentation of the constructions became an integral part of the artwork, one of the features of conceptual art from which Land Art emerged and supposedly set it apart from the landscaping of aristocrat's estates in 18th century Europe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The relationship between the designs of country estates and their depiction in paintings as well as the broader genre of landscape art is comparable to that of 20th century Land Art and photography. As land artists saw each others art-making through photographs, so landscaped gardens and landscape paintings enjoyed a circular exchange of influences. Aristocrat's estates and landscape painting were a tangible or visible form of the idea of virtue, the quality of order and a feeling of purpose behind nature. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Landscape art turned the natural world into a persuasive idea of 'nature' that evoked feelings of wonder when it was picturesque and awe when it was sublime.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_F_qcdUbUG7g75dDfY-oXJSLT8Geba_ZXQ5Eqs4QPinsTyiyPPBZJl2TAAWNRp9iRAJq97sM91WWYs8Y0RJi75ZYtsAozk6HI8BcNvyp6OYLq2aoUzweZ4_PEA0bPNzTJv56rDeUVvg/s1600/Capability.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="473" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_F_qcdUbUG7g75dDfY-oXJSLT8Geba_ZXQ5Eqs4QPinsTyiyPPBZJl2TAAWNRp9iRAJq97sM91WWYs8Y0RJi75ZYtsAozk6HI8BcNvyp6OYLq2aoUzweZ4_PEA0bPNzTJv56rDeUVvg/s200/Capability.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>'Capability' Brown's</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>design for an improved</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>landscape</b></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">By using their wealth to fabricate actual landscapes based on the </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">aesthetics of landscape pictures aristocrats associated their own social
position with the concept of natural order. By owning landscape paintings the middle class could buy into this vision and s</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">tate their place on t</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">he social ladder. In the industrial age primary wealth moved away from the landed gentry and in the 20th century became concentrated in corporations. Land Art was a reaction against the cultural heritage of landscape art as the Vietnam War escalated, civil rights protests grew and NASA explored the airless deserts of the moon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Although still dependent on wealthy individuals such as Robert Scull and Virginia Dwan, Land Art gave young artists a place to experiment with conceptual art, unaccountable to national art institutions and the 'military industrial complex'. In the context of social turmoil in the 1960s the deserts of the western United States promised a 'tabula rasa' in which a new ethos could be explored. From 1969-1970 Michael Heizer used a bulldozer to excavate two parallel cuts in the side of Mormon Mesa near Overton in Nevada to make Double Negative. 240,000 tons of rock was moved to make the converging channels, parallel to the valley side, extended towards each other by ramps formed from excavated spoil.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Unlike 18th century country estates, the Land Art projects display an absurdist aspect. In 1970, Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty parodied the sense of purpose inherent in an actual jetty. 6,650 tons of rock were dumped into Salt Lake, Utah to form a line that spirals in on itself. Heizer's and Smithson's projects look like relics from lost civilizations. Walter De Maria's 1977 Lightning Field (a grid of vertical poles in an oblong one mile by one kilometre) looks like a survey for a vast building. These projects are concepts, like Gustav Holst's The Planets which explores themes of beauty, grandeur and the sublime, while omitting the Earth from the symphony.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Whereas Land Art took art from the gallery, in 1991 the Biosphere 2 project tried to emulate the world in a sealed environment. Eventually it failed to make enough oxygen for its human 'crew'. (3) The designers of Biosphere 2 struggled with the complexity of biological nature, like the hapless creators of the 1930s Oklahoma dust-bowls. Through places like Biosphere 2 and the Eden Project we learn that we are reliant on the biosphere in ways we may not always fully <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0?fbclid=IwAR0JKDSPNBXCXtkWvxFK2t85RGNGmJ13uLpUmwp09HmamDpAvJEPHSDPKfA">understand.</a>. To reflect our new place in nature, art has to create a visual equivalent to the poetry of <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/kathleen-jamie">Kathleen Jamie</a>, who fluently combines the cosmic and the geological with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jun/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview15">personal.</a></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZpYNJNwbMHnkW0-GNTRYwOqYnQeEUY3ZoPSowQh4AEhHylXXZYv3qcG73cCMK9gJ5YeMLWcb779dHCAkvjk6tFD_4vW3PvxCKTJuxPBZJkoOvFqJvS15pnzemls0O5cedGP8px9VtA/s1600/Utopias+8+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="1600" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZpYNJNwbMHnkW0-GNTRYwOqYnQeEUY3ZoPSowQh4AEhHylXXZYv3qcG73cCMK9gJ5YeMLWcb779dHCAkvjk6tFD_4vW3PvxCKTJuxPBZJkoOvFqJvS15pnzemls0O5cedGP8px9VtA/s640/Utopias+8+Blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The first
experiments with land art took place against a background of unprecedented rate
of social change and significant political turmoil. Robert Smithson produced
his early project <i style="font-weight: bold;">partially buried
woodshed</i> at </b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b>Kent</b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b> State university in January 1970. By a
tragic co-incidence in the summer of that year nine students were shot and four
were killed on the campus, by members of the National Guard, during a Vietnam<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">War protest. While the art world,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>at<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>th</span></b><b>e level of major institutions and
collectors, remained aloof from the social conflicts and the exigencies of
those caught up in them it had its own internal battles to fight. What
was referred to in the 1930s as "the crisis of figuration"
(abstraction) in art came to a head with the rise to fame of Jackson Pollock.
By 1949<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>magazine was asking " </b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is he the greatest
living painter in the </span></b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">United States</span></b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">?" </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From a 21st
century post-modern perspective the controversy surrounding </span></b><b>Pollock may seem trivial, but when he
completed</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> his<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Number
31</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>painting in 1950 he
asked his wife Lee Krasner "Is this even a painting?" Being at the
centre of the 'culture war' between the Avant- Garde and the conservative ideal
of art may have accelerated Pollock's mental and physical </span></b><b>destruction</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Perhaps art did not
end Pollock's life, but like individuals who carry a </span></b><b>desperation</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> within them that
causes them to seek out civil wars and to volunteer to fight for one side,
he was drawn to the cause.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Although once at odds with a conservative ideal of
art, most of the abstract expressionist artists have now been absorbed by </span></b><b>the</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></b><b>corporate</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> world and their
pictures have sold for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. It is not
possible to look at the photographs of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Degenerate Ar</i>t
exhibition organised by the Nazi </span></b><b>party</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> in 1937, so at to mock the </span></b><b>products</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> of the
avant-garde, and not imagine the pictures gracing the walls of </span></b><b>millionaires today.</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The </span></b><st1:place><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hollywood</span></b></st1:place><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> dramatisation of the
life of Vincent van Goch<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Lust for Life</i> marks
the time when the idea of the 'tortured artistic genius' became lodged within
the public imagination. The film was released in 1956, the same year as Jackson
Pollock's early death in a road accident. It is this association of the
avant-garde with the unique </span></b><b>collectability</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> of the work of exceptional individuals
that commends it to the commercial world, and the investment portfolios of
the wealthy. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Artists have never changed the world as much as the ant-Vietnam
War movement. The protests created a mass
awareness of environmental issues that inform the politics of today. The exact
point of contact between the two protest movements could be defined by the use
of defoliant chemicals in </span></b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vietnam</span></b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. The tactic of
denying cover for the </span></b><b>Vietcong</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> army left a toxic, carcinogenic and mutogenic legacy
caused by the dioxin by-product in the 'agent orange' sprayed by aircraft over huge areas to remove leaves from trees in zones of infiltration. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the midst of the
turmoil of the last century landscape art became marginalised and its
aesthetics associated with reactionary elites. In the 1960s landscape art became as </span>irrelevant<span style="font-family: inherit;"> to a new </span>socially engaged art as it was to the 'high end' art sought after by the wealthy collectors.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the 21st century we have come
full circle. An engagement with landscape and the wider awareness of the
environment and Earth systems is the most important challenge for art. This
circularity of change mirrors the change in the </span>appearance<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of science in society. In the 20th
century science became associated with nuclear weapons and industrial
pollution. </span></span></b><b>In the 21st
century it is the turn of right-wing politicians to deny the evidence of
climate change provided by science.</b><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The moon-race was another kind of
proxy-war between the </b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b>U.S.A.</b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b> and the U.S.S.R. The objective of the
race, the airless and lifeless surface of the moon seemed to personify what was
wrong with science for many people. The 1966 Daily Mail headline " The picture
of the century" over the Lunar Orbiter oblique photograph of the crater Copernicus on the moon could not have been more wrong. It is either the </b><b>Apollo 8<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Earthrise<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>picture or the Apollo 17<span class="apple-converted-space"> B</span><i>lue Marble</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>picture of the Earth that captured the
imagination of the world.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHimhBh82_V4q8WNiEzn8AanLHC3nEQ5gGvOwR0G2KtU3egeHxzKUdOEpo9oRKEQyQj8I2fhSKqvxOQHuL7dwSYpxuOQE1lhe-IdL-WUnm1Y7FeEhqUN62WsaB_vGGiSXTqaDrBYiyJw/s1600/Earthrise+Blue+Marble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="1186" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHimhBh82_V4q8WNiEzn8AanLHC3nEQ5gGvOwR0G2KtU3egeHxzKUdOEpo9oRKEQyQj8I2fhSKqvxOQHuL7dwSYpxuOQE1lhe-IdL-WUnm1Y7FeEhqUN62WsaB_vGGiSXTqaDrBYiyJw/s640/Earthrise+Blue+Marble.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><ol>
<li style="text-align: left;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">Apollo 8 - </span></b><st1:date day="24" month="12" year="1968"><b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">24th
December 1968</span></b></st1:date><b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">
<i>Earthrise <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i> Apollo 17 - </span></b><st1:date day="7" month="12" year="1972"><b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">7th December 1972</span></b></st1:date><b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;"> <i>Blue Marble</i></span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</li>
</ol>
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<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the melee of competing aspirations in 20th century art, landscape all but disappeared. Traditional landscape paintings became deeply unfashionable, the cubist, surreal and abstract expressionist movements became collectable and out of the anti-war, CND and feminist movements a socially committed idea of public art evolved that concentrates of the idea of individual fulfillment and identity. In the 21st century the challenge is to produce forms of art that encourage contemplation of artifice and nature as well as choices around genetic editing and geoengineering that must be made in the Anthropocene, without falling into the trap of being only protests.</span><br />
<b><a href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10025068-utopias-8">Utopias-8 on BLURB</a></b></div>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-7653607175433087252019-03-22T20:48:00.001+00:002021-03-23T14:31:12.735+00:00Utopias 7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXwFZmBhT5TagplZQHFqgTkYxg-lOflSXk6VBVS2-3OjpS928Bvxb0jRGUUfQOpn-PiypV04dPi-8p7hFbf4dljsM1zwNT8Pa44ZlXodNLD9wV5jclQhmGL8XKLCBxH42Mp-6qfIe6A/s1600/Utopias+7+cover+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="800" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXwFZmBhT5TagplZQHFqgTkYxg-lOflSXk6VBVS2-3OjpS928Bvxb0jRGUUfQOpn-PiypV04dPi-8p7hFbf4dljsM1zwNT8Pa44ZlXodNLD9wV5jclQhmGL8XKLCBxH42Mp-6qfIe6A/s400/Utopias+7+cover+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/9338609-utopias-7"><span style="font-size: large;">Utopias-7 on Blurb</span></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On the 25th December 1758 the return of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet">comet</a>, predicted by <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwhVQM2krpuSRSpFsdBl7jVz3WgTl1sVcTpIvHo1vx_nW5rXjO0O7l9vwPeAKgyzNLL77Zjf7jDZMlYJ5WCCQfkUWQ_vgGoGkhiDHGhc2U3Dsv8cT5pOPQxI9CljgCFvBN8fr9lBowQ/s1600/Halley%2527s_Comet_-_May_29_1910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="908" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwhVQM2krpuSRSpFsdBl7jVz3WgTl1sVcTpIvHo1vx_nW5rXjO0O7l9vwPeAKgyzNLL77Zjf7jDZMlYJ5WCCQfkUWQ_vgGoGkhiDHGhc2U3Dsv8cT5pOPQxI9CljgCFvBN8fr9lBowQ/s200/Halley%2527s_Comet_-_May_29_1910.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Halley's Comet photographed in 1910</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Edmond Halley 53 years earlier, was seen in Germany. News of the arrival was greeted with jubilation in scientific circles around the </span><span style="font-size: large;">world</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">and especially in France where a group of mathematicians had calculated a delay of 618 days, caused by the</span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">gravitational </span>influence of Jupiter. The discovery proved the ability of science not only to describe nature but also to predict the future behaviour of physical systems. If the motion of celestial mechanics could be predicted then the workings of unbuilt machines would also. The industrial </span><span style="font-size: large;">revolution</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">would no longer progress by trial and error but would use science to explore nature and the power of steam, electricity and the atom. </span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mPPvfq7jStkKkyJWJdxDcw9_jT4a0pdhGlrijBU4g2YAHPKTS2bR7icRbHfRFx-nOybrflHPx8NZQXRRpwtG2ZcI8lqZ1E9XBwJIS46svnfYjHP8d7l37zbZRjMgsCoKYph5DIiNfg/s1600/WP_dailysanctuary-com_2015_03_RP065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="650" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mPPvfq7jStkKkyJWJdxDcw9_jT4a0pdhGlrijBU4g2YAHPKTS2bR7icRbHfRFx-nOybrflHPx8NZQXRRpwtG2ZcI8lqZ1E9XBwJIS46svnfYjHP8d7l37zbZRjMgsCoKYph5DIiNfg/s200/WP_dailysanctuary-com_2015_03_RP065.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>The Plutonium bomb ready</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>for detonation in July 1945</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>The test was required as</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>the 'prompt criticality'</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>method of detonation was </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>less certain than the 'gun-type'</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Hiroshima weapon</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Science came to dominate medicine, industry, transport, communication and warfare. In 1945 when two atomic bombs </span><span style="font-size: large;">were detonated in Japan the uranium bomb used to attack Hiroshima had not been tested, such was the confidence of its designers. A test of a plutonium weapon in the United States was deemed necessary three weeks before the attack on Nagasaki. Edmond Haylley knew that 'his' comet would not return in his lifetime. Before the first atomic explosion in July 1945 Hans Bethe calculated that it would not ignite the entire atmosphere of the Earth.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The pursuit of knowledge that had been the essence of the</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Enlightenment took a dark turn in 1945 and art had little to reflect this. Although film, television, literature and journalism were greatly exercised by the atomic age, suggestions of apprehension hinted at in Joseph Wright's 18th century paintings of scientific <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDzxIKYSZml7nytXR9oirXYSttatgkHZUJAe-42hIyZCRlYsf9GHdPDlp3RLv0aXKsW8MECEC2xwJzqRvDh6etDfD6qhylj3JRfgQp2EH_kUOAyVA1jlB2deOtj8UKq0Aa-X_JleK6oA/s1600/Sculpture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1068" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDzxIKYSZml7nytXR9oirXYSttatgkHZUJAe-42hIyZCRlYsf9GHdPDlp3RLv0aXKsW8MECEC2xwJzqRvDh6etDfD6qhylj3JRfgQp2EH_kUOAyVA1jlB2deOtj8UKq0Aa-X_JleK6oA/s200/Sculpture.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Sphere Within Sphere </i><br />Arnaldo Pmodoro</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
experiments found no expression, in the art of the 20th century, that was equal to the scale of change. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The desire to elicit power from nature motivated the creation of prehistoric cave paintings and was explored by philosophers in classical Greece, but the adjustment from belief in magic to testable theories of nature as physical forces is still not complete. 'Nature' now has layered meanings, one of which has the physical laws of nature operating only in the background to the life and immediate experience of individuals. This idea of nature has evolved to exclude the seemingly abstruse discoveries of science. It has become a habit of mind that science and the phenomena it describes are distinct from life. The use of atomic bombs reinforced this tendency by associating science with mass destruction. Conflating the misgivings associated with the atomic bombing of cities with the uncanny conversion of matter to energy, a part of popular culture derived a sense of science as being a <a href="http://raley.english.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/Reading/Sontag-disaster.pdf">transgression of nature</a> . <b>(1)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Thermonuclear weapons tested from 1952 onwards are one thousand times more powerful than the atomic bombs that ended the Second World War. Convection currents from the explosions were so strong they thrust radioactive material into the stratosphere and around the </span><span style="font-size: large;">world.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> By the 1960s</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">even the bones</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrdHOEHriVJ31XQaL1jQBA_dR-htqRdNzCyOqpcciVPlNS-gqNmuaaOiY__xCeH19Bv2o1RaDCK35ly_msWLrnUJ4GMqW82TmUyhSGW7B-3LSARUrRj4WKHJOMBT_sfXylK9IXaxDcQ/s1600/grapplex01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrdHOEHriVJ31XQaL1jQBA_dR-htqRdNzCyOqpcciVPlNS-gqNmuaaOiY__xCeH19Bv2o1RaDCK35ly_msWLrnUJ4GMqW82TmUyhSGW7B-3LSARUrRj4WKHJOMBT_sfXylK9IXaxDcQ/s320/grapplex01.jpg" width="229" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">of penguins in Antarctica contained detectable amounts of strontium-90. Other radioactive products are now being incorporated into newly-forming rocks. Such a radioactive marker, as well as chemical changes caused by climate change, are cited as a 'golden spike' recording an idetifiable start to the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvgG-pxlobk" style="font-size: x-large;">Anthropocene</a><span style="font-size: large;"> geological era in which humans are the dominant influence on Earth systems. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As well as global warming, caused by reducing the infra-red transparency of the atmosphere <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhfG11qPVqylEGVf_rJ2_Zsznzto1k7NyGjKGYXI6BEcBs98LEZTmAXHM9Zm6sqpT_UL4bk8bmsfbH4IBTgB2FeGQpvFk0ol-6EExaoXXvgt5SW6oUpZxxfs9389FaEbE3LdyhvaAAg/s1600/Mars+ans+its+Canals+44-45+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1551" data-original-width="1600" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhfG11qPVqylEGVf_rJ2_Zsznzto1k7NyGjKGYXI6BEcBs98LEZTmAXHM9Zm6sqpT_UL4bk8bmsfbH4IBTgB2FeGQpvFk0ol-6EExaoXXvgt5SW6oUpZxxfs9389FaEbE3LdyhvaAAg/s200/Mars+ans+its+Canals+44-45+crop.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">From <i>Mars and its Canals</i> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">this drawing by Percival </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Lowell is the result of an </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">optical illusion. Over years</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">of telescopic observations</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Lowell produced numerous</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">drawings of 'canals' but the</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">features have never been </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">photographed.Through his </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">books Lowell introduced </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">the idea of global scale </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">engineering to the popular<br />imagination.</span></b></td></tr>
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through <span style="font-size: large;">carbon dioxide and methane emissions, industrial activity now moves as much material as rivers and glaciers. Humans are now a planetary force on a scale imagined by Percival Lowell in his </span><span style="font-size: large;">erroneous but influential books about a supposed civilization creating a huge network of irrigation canals on </span><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47015/47015-h/47015-h.htm" style="font-size: x-large;">Mars</a><span style="font-size: large;">. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Our technosphere, the total quantity of material made or relocated by humans, has been estimated to weigh 30 trillion tons. It takes 20 tons of rock to produce a single gold wedding ring.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In his book <i>the American Technological Sublime</i> David Nye claims that between the start of the 'atomic age' in 1945 and the launch of </span><span style="font-size: large;">Apollo 11 </span><span style="font-size: large;">in 1969 the </span><span style="font-size: large;"> impression of </span><span style="font-size: large;"> awe</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">once associated</span><span style="font-size: large;"> with </span><span style="font-size: large;">nature, in art and literature, also became attached to technology. However</span><span style="font-size: large;"> the technological sublime is not part of </span><span style="font-size: large;">contemporary art. The transformation of the Earth is more likely to </span><span style="font-size: large;">be depicted through the ability of film and video editing to join places and the capacity of aerial photography to convey a landscape undiminished by distance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Proliferation of mass media at the start of the 20th century coincided with the abandonment of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art">perspectival representation</a> of three dimensional space by avant garde art, leaving photography to continue the aesthetic of the sublime. Ansel Adams' photographs of the pristine Sierra Nevada were contemporary with Le Corbusier's photographic book celebrating the cultural importance of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/aircraft-by-le-corbusier">aircraft</a>. <b>(2)</b> In the 20th century the <i>National Geographic</i> magazine brought these aesthetics to a mass readership in articles and photographs that tacitly assumed an age of agricultural and industrial improvement would continue unabated with the natural world remaining essentially unchanged in the background, like the painted scenic panels in classical Greek theatre that were the origin of landscape art. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the tradition of 'sublime' landscape painters such as Albert Bierstandt and Thomas Moran <i>National Geographic</i> developed a style of landscape photography dependent on attaining an ideal viewpoint. The getting of the photograph became part of the story. The Earthrise picture </span><span style="font-size: large;">taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts in lunar orbit</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">on the 24th December 1968 is perhaps the ultimate landscape photograph. The image of the Earth rising over a lifeless Moon is uncanny, revealing the entirety of our planet while conceding nothing of our lived experience of it. Earthrise is beguiling image with a beauty that is hard to define, like a successful abstract picture. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuhyphenhyphenmZ9nYs6dhiulkyykmcnljmRa0P7KaR2rFmgDXh2fRf8OhyWvc1C8HPKD3Gnd-OGqmykttnTUjqqhmtm3iPmsn7z7qfjyujLdXaOAnMIwMvCz5j-tv9Rz3b7ooXrkSiMXLTfUyjg/s1600/NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuhyphenhyphenmZ9nYs6dhiulkyykmcnljmRa0P7KaR2rFmgDXh2fRf8OhyWvc1C8HPKD3Gnd-OGqmykttnTUjqqhmtm3iPmsn7z7qfjyujLdXaOAnMIwMvCz5j-tv9Rz3b7ooXrkSiMXLTfUyjg/s320/NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: left;">The Apollo 8<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Earthrise</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>photograph </b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: left;"><b>taken </b></b><b style="text-align: left;"><b>on </b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: left;"><st1:date day="24" month="12" year="1968"><b>24th December </b></st1:date><st1:date day="24" month="12" style="text-align: left;" year="1968"><b>1968.</b></st1:date></b></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the 1950s when Jackson Pollock made his abstract paintings it appeared that art had never been further apart from science but his technique of dripping paint onto canvas prefigured a type of sculpture shaped by material determinants - gravity, tension, elasticity - like the formation of actual landscapes. In 1968 Robert Smithson proposed 'non-site' exhibitions that emulated science museums by displaying rocks from a remote site in a gallery, with accompanying maps and photographs. In the 1970s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/process-art">process-driven</a> sculpture combined with the concept of non-sites and Michael Foucalt's 'heterotopias' to evolve a art-form known as 'Earthworks'. <b>(3)</b></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSUh4Im59aTJzxGtgdjwYKQQxe0QbNJ-D-Yz9659_slsTA1Oc8vf9KGgG8MQD9BTMF9mQzCYzUFVr-GyTZGbo5-pJix7JDqqbLJ-K9QQ760_mTNDtT6TI9TzcwDeJjSVrPpPIRvn9iVQ/s1600/Bluepoles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="800" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSUh4Im59aTJzxGtgdjwYKQQxe0QbNJ-D-Yz9659_slsTA1Oc8vf9KGgG8MQD9BTMF9mQzCYzUFVr-GyTZGbo5-pJix7JDqqbLJ-K9QQ760_mTNDtT6TI9TzcwDeJjSVrPpPIRvn9iVQ/s640/Bluepoles.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<h4>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paradoxically Jackson
Pollock's dramatic abstract paintings seem to look towards a future
dominated by science and also look backwards to ancient times that had
mystical beliefs<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>lost to
the rational secular society of 1950s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><st1:country-region>America</st1:country-region></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">. Pollock stated in a radio interview
that" the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the
atom bomb, in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the old forms of
the Renaissance or any other past culture.” Superficially his most
energetic paintings resemble the swirling patters seen in contemporary
bubble chambers that revealed the tracks of sub-atomic particles, but he was
influenced by native American sand painters, Jungian Psychology,
Theosophy and a general feeling articulated by Laurens Van De
Post in his book <i>The Lost World of the Kalahari </i>that the 'civilized' world had
lost a connection with nature.</span><o:p></o:p></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_XMnIRtZ5-jvPZNkgflZqqVHoZhx-fuN8RT2WYn1M8ZMeELZbEkB4t74TlA4clx-SjfxsOw-5e69ILkoMPrTyKw51SEu8oh3cRirY8auQKnrhw_T7RAR8b6vcECYi6aUTgCQP-xK3A/s1600/Bubblechamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="600" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_XMnIRtZ5-jvPZNkgflZqqVHoZhx-fuN8RT2WYn1M8ZMeELZbEkB4t74TlA4clx-SjfxsOw-5e69ILkoMPrTyKw51SEu8oh3cRirY8auQKnrhw_T7RAR8b6vcECYi6aUTgCQP-xK3A/s640/Bubblechamber.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bubble chamber photographs made in the 1950s.</span></b></div>
</h3>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Virginia Dwan purchased a site on the shore of </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBBOKe44f8qA_ENlcSLM63FalAtf88g1qgXf8wo1SpN7EOKlBtXKrXb5SQM-Bq2tfaqzX7nNC8oPXs2IKjSInL13MryEH71YgypGUddMBW8J9h7191bZ-Hp_2yVaxJYdnsE75qxKTrA/s1600/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="238" data-original-width="354" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBBOKe44f8qA_ENlcSLM63FalAtf88g1qgXf8wo1SpN7EOKlBtXKrXb5SQM-Bq2tfaqzX7nNC8oPXs2IKjSInL13MryEH71YgypGUddMBW8J9h7191bZ-Hp_2yVaxJYdnsE75qxKTrA/s320/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Great Salt Lake (Utah) enabling Smithson to built his <a href="https://diaart.org/visit/visit/robert-smithson-spiral-jetty"><i>Spiral Jetty</i></a> in 1970 using 1400 tons of rock to create a spiral causeway. This iconic construction is part of the canon of Earthworks, paid for by Dwan and later known as Land Art; including Michael Heizer's <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Double+Negative+NEVADA&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin6YzKn5PKAhUCbz4KHeY3AJUQ_AUIBygB&biw=1145&bih=576"><i>Double Negative</i></a> (two trenches bulldozed across a valley) and a precursor to Walter De Maria's <a href="https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit/walter-de-maria-the-lightning-field/"><i>Lightning Field</i></a> (an array of metal poles in a grid pattern). Land Art related to the engineered landscapes of the 1960s. In the 21st century the brute force of diesel-powered excavation is joined by the more subtle and far-reaching ability to edit genes. Photosynthesis might be re-edited </span><span style="font-size: large;">In the future </span><span style="font-size: large;">so that plants could take more carbon dioxide from the air. Plants or ecosystems could be 'pre-evolved' to survive climate change but their behaviour would not be as predictable as the movement of comets.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGdXUOAQo-OdKEoqACQ5eYf393eDtusdwpjghnSJPtRRyPAH0KxoMs8xEBmV8n97S1Ddrvh0tkPlfaumVJ5vZs6lXv3K_v_NShN6Yif9JgQwYFukuO7IpnCr9I6LfJlpVESZJzMEGig/s1600/Galileo+composite+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="1600" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGdXUOAQo-OdKEoqACQ5eYf393eDtusdwpjghnSJPtRRyPAH0KxoMs8xEBmV8n97S1Ddrvh0tkPlfaumVJ5vZs6lXv3K_v_NShN6Yif9JgQwYFukuO7IpnCr9I6LfJlpVESZJzMEGig/s640/Galileo+composite+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">(1)<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i>Unfinished, Untitled or Not
Yet, </i>1966 by Eva Hesse Nine dyed net bags, clear
polyethylene sheeting, metal weights and string. Eva Hesse was influenced
by Jackson Pollock, speaking about a different piece she said "
This piece is very ordered. Maybe I'll make it more structured, maybe
I'll leave it changeable. When it's completed, its order could be chaos.
Chaos can be structured as non-chaos. That we know from Jackson
Pollock." </span><o:p></o:p></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(2) <o:p></o:p> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Quartered Meteor</i></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> 1969
by Lynda Benglis follows on from the anti-form process-art that allowed the
shape of an artwork to be decided by the physical laws of
nature, such as gravity and viscosity. <i>Quartered Meteor </i>was originally made
by pouring polyurethane into the corner of a gallery. Later
the ephemeral form was cast in lead resulting in a sculpture
that resembles cooled lava. The anti-form 'movement' was distinct from abstract
forms such as Henri Moore or Barbara Hepworth's sculptures as they
determined the final form of their work from their imagination
whereas process sculpture was ultimately decided by nature after the
artist set up the initial starting conditions of the 'experiment'. </span><o:p></o:p></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">(3)</span><i> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Texas Overflow </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">- Robert
Smithson wanted to make "artificial landscapes without cultural
precedent". In 1966 Smithson became the artist-consultant to a firm of
architects and engineers competing for he</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><st1:place style="font-size: 12.8px;"><st1:placename><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Dallas-Fort</span></st1:placename></st1:place></st1:placename><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><st1:placename><st1:placename><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Worth</span></st1:placename></st1:placename><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><st1:placetype><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Airport</span></st1:placetype></st1:placetype></st1:place><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">project. His brief was to
design artworks to occupy the unused areas of land between runways
and taxi-ways. Out of necessity they had to be flat. Although unrealised his
drawings represented a break from the history of landscape design. Whereas the
Paradeisos of the Middle-East and the landscape gardens of European aristocrats implied a purposeful origin to nature and expressed a divinely creative </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">process</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> at work in landscapes the disregarded voids between concrete runways signify nothing. These industrial <i>Tabla Rasa p</i>resented Smithson with a blank 'canvas' on which to explore his ambition.</span></span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">After settling in </span><st1:state style="font-size: 12.8px;"><st1:place><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">New York</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"> in 1960 Robert Smithson began to socialise with artists such </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">as </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Michael Heizer and Nancy Holt </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">(who he married in 1963). Smithson
became </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">interested in extending Eva Hess's idea of allowing sculptures to find
their eventual </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">form, through flow of material, to large scale structures in the
landscape. </span></h3>
<h3>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">From a
young age Smithson was interested in dinosaurs and natural history
and he combined an interest in geological processes with the emerging Land Art
movement. One of his most innovative ideas involved pumping </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">asphalt</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> into
a disused limestone pit. The idea of creating a kind of artificial
lava field by pumping the liquid in to the centre of the landscape feature and
allowing it to flow outwards and solidify is a development of
the gallery-based process-art, re-located in the landscape. By allowing physics
to determine the final form of process-art it re-connects with nature in a way
the traditional landscape art never did. <i>Texas Overflow </i>was realised in a reduced form when Smithson </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">organised</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> a truck-load of asphalt to be tipped into a pit near <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AmpyiR6kj8">Rome</a> .</span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(4) Artists such as Eva Hesse in the 1960s concentrated the attention of the art world on the possibilities offered by new materials. In the </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">previous</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> decade Jackson Pollock </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">occasionally included 'foreign matter' such as cigarette butts and broken glass in his still-wet paintings. Whereas Pollock was probably influenced by alcohol consumption during these particular painting sessions, Eva Hess explored the deliberate use of industrial materials. Her <i>Contingent </i>1969 piece consisted of cheesecloth set in latex and fiberglass. Achieving the cover of </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Artforum</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> magazine, <a href="https://nga.gov.au/international/Catalogue/Detail.cfm?IRN=49353"><i>Contingent</i></a></span><i style="font-size: 16px;"> </i><span style="font-size: 16px;">identifies firmly with the Anthropocene era as does much of Hesse's artwork which consisted of "large expanses or dense coagulations and snarls of matter - of latex, of fibreglass, of cord, of plastic" (4) Robert Smithson took this idea of the expressive quality of matter and applied it on a landscape scale when he built </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Spiral Jetty</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> in 1970.</span></h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk42YAwDo9s1Ejy2O8Wap25sihig84eeKepZsnDEeOI9RrojMMcGC2_tGrXoa3k4xI0ZXuUbneBX1tl7DAtG5kM-iJ3T7WWRUkAltw3RNXYN21XjbIoWhqTXkL250pDpaWE0k6GW6iBQ/s1600/Spiral+Palm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk42YAwDo9s1Ejy2O8Wap25sihig84eeKepZsnDEeOI9RrojMMcGC2_tGrXoa3k4xI0ZXuUbneBX1tl7DAtG5kM-iJ3T7WWRUkAltw3RNXYN21XjbIoWhqTXkL250pDpaWE0k6GW6iBQ/s640/Spiral+Palm.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Land Art constructions are not necessarily the same as Environmental Art. The 'classic' constructions such as Spiral Jetty were not concerned with modern environmental issues and indeed celebrated our power over nature to some extent. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands">Palm Islands</a> development is a commercialised legacy of <i>Spiral Jetty</i>.</span></b></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In 1990 the Galileo spacecraft flew by the Earth for a gravitational slingshot to accelerate it onward to Jupiter. Carl Sagan recognised the opportunity to see if intelligent life could be detected from space. Although cultivated land was visible in Australia only a broadcast radio signal was deemed to be an unambiguous sign of life. Now contemporary art should feel this similarly ambiguous age of landscape, nature and artifice.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlISsPVIs1Ni0QIOlzgcinETg74xFLKVQJV7cfCeE6kYeD9kKaecI6XUH5Q8RLEd_6FpNCoIAeUUEtazkEyTZ8t2INCpFKS6KbEaKMc5E_UbsgUZJOcsXbSXQm5ZD3zhYyFIy4aqKZ-A/s1600/Galileo+composite+JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="1600" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlISsPVIs1Ni0QIOlzgcinETg74xFLKVQJV7cfCeE6kYeD9kKaecI6XUH5Q8RLEd_6FpNCoIAeUUEtazkEyTZ8t2INCpFKS6KbEaKMc5E_UbsgUZJOcsXbSXQm5ZD3zhYyFIy4aqKZ-A/s640/Galileo+composite+JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Challenger space shuttle</b> <b>explosion resulted
in the loss of the spacecraft and crew. A subsequent safety review
allowed the space shuttle to return to service but it was decided that
launching Galileo from the shuttle with a liquid fueled rocket in the cargo
bay would be too dangerous. The solution to the problem was to switch<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the launch an alternative rocket that
would not be powerful enough to sent the spacecraft on a simple trajectory to
Jupiter but would require a gravitational slingshot flyby of Venus
and two from Earth. Carl Sagan realised that the two flybys of Earth would
present the opportunity to see what an exoplanet would look like to a probe
sent from Earth. Pretending that they had no knowledge of the Earth,
experts examined pictures from Galileo as if they were seeing our planet for
the first time but were unable to gleen any conclusive photographic evidence of
the changes made by humans. In this 'expedition to Earth' only a narrow-band
radio signal from an unidentified radio station detected by an antenna on the
spacecraft gave an unambiguous<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>indication
of technology. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />
(1) From an altitude of about 500,000 kilometers most of </b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b>Egypt</b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b> and the </b><st1:place><b>Arabian Peninsula</b></st1:place><b> were photographed on </b><st1:date day="9" month="12" year="1992"><b>December
9, 1992</b></st1:date><b>. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />
(2) The </b><st1:place><b>Simpson Desert</b></st1:place><b> in </b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b>Australia</b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b> seen from 56,000 kilometer at
about </b><st1:time hour="14" minute="30"><b>2:30 p.m. PST</b></st1:time><b>, </b><st1:date day="8" month="12" year="1990"><b>Dec. 8,
1990</b></st1:date><b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />
(3) </b><st1:place><b>Antarctica</b></st1:place><b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
(4) Apart from the 'expedition to Earth' experiment two sets of laser pulses
were transmitted to Galileo over a distance of 1.4 million kilometers (870,000
miles) in a communications experiment seen in this long-exposure image made by
the spacecraft's imaging system. To register the laser light as points it was
necessary to allow the rest of the Earth to become blurred. The image could serve as a metaphor for the Anthropocene in which our artificial world of technology and nature will increasingly compete for our attention in a future where the the artificial and the natural become indistinct.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><u>References</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(1) Sontag, S. (1966). The imagination of disaster. In: Against interpretation, and other essays: / Farrar,Strauss & Giroux. New York.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">(2) Le Corbusier (1935) Aircraft: The New Vision / The Studio. London, New York.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">(3) Kastner, J. (2005). Land and environmental art / edited by Jeffrey Kastner ; survey by Brian Wallis. London.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(4) </span><span style="font-size: large;">Rosalind Krauss in - </span><span style="font-size: large;">Hesse, E., Serota, N., Whitechapel Art Gallery, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, & Kestner-Gesellschaft. (1979). </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">Eva Hesse, 1936-1970 : Sculpture / [edited by Nicholas Serota].</i><span style="font-size: large;"> London</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/9338609-utopias-7"><span style="font-size: large;">Uttopias-7</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"...every universe is concentrated in a nucleus, a spore, a dynamized center. And this centre is powerful, because it is an imagined center. One step further into the world of images offered us by Pieyre de Mandiargues, and we see the center that imagines; then we can read the landscape in the glass nucleus. We no longer look at it while looking through it. This nucleizing nucleus is a world in itself. The miniature deploys to the dimensions of a universe. Once more, large is contained in small.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Gaston Bachelard - Miniature - The Poetics of Space</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-2014724537491732252018-07-18T20:00:00.000+01:002018-07-19T21:08:15.838+01:00Utopias - 6 Landscape In the Anthropocene.<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8713591-utopias-6">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8713591-utopias-6</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Alexander von
Humboldt has been described as the last scientist <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAINfNrFf5eXiNkh4ZS9-e0mTzyyu3iBPwhNq9c1Hks-Eazij-W3nmBfM5mSlxPKEMIKmJZYZIggVD7q0WA70rXMWANoHO86jrZCLvfGzbNqtnkovk3hkLjBfdtEiliEUldC_LjV4TEw/s1600/Woodbridge_isothermal_chart3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1157" data-original-width="1600" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAINfNrFf5eXiNkh4ZS9-e0mTzyyu3iBPwhNq9c1Hks-Eazij-W3nmBfM5mSlxPKEMIKmJZYZIggVD7q0WA70rXMWANoHO86jrZCLvfGzbNqtnkovk3hkLjBfdtEiliEUldC_LjV4TEw/s320/Woodbridge_isothermal_chart3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Climatic regions made explicit by isotherms,</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">now also used to map weather.</span></b><br />
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who knew everything. After
his death in 1859 the volume of knowledge of nature </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">became too great for one
person to comprehend. Amongst his many achievements, he invented isothermal
lines for climatic maps. Isolines enable us to map aspects of nature that are
invisible and extend beyond the horizon or the scope of a landscape picture.
Since the time of Humboldt, science has continued to advance and now
researchers know more and more about ever narrower fields of study while the
scientific account of nature has reached a point that exceeds popular
understanding and shared belief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">industrial</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">revolution made </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">this </span><span style="font-size: large;">happen </span><span style="font-size: large;">by</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">providing </span><span style="font-size: large;">the </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">technology</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">and </span><span style="font-size: large;">instruments</span><span style="font-size: large;"> that could </span><span style="font-size: large;">interrogate </span><span style="font-size: large;">nature. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieyKqDwmK5u9TIJhYF3E5IL0LbyoZUn8qw2sXEPWqJFAEUD1c2qXwvtqEvkbKv0Wn4uIErBdSvriykIJhfrj40BJG-qA0H0jZjl4CqPB5n3gLhDww84Be7DgK-6eCE69es1BvzRl9U3A/s1600/Jacquard.loom.cards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="249" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieyKqDwmK5u9TIJhYF3E5IL0LbyoZUn8qw2sXEPWqJFAEUD1c2qXwvtqEvkbKv0Wn4uIErBdSvriykIJhfrj40BJG-qA0H0jZjl4CqPB5n3gLhDww84Be7DgK-6eCE69es1BvzRl9U3A/s200/Jacquard.loom.cards.jpg" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Punched cards</span></b> <b><span style="font-size: small;">used to<br />record patterns for a<br />Jacquard loom.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">conceptualisation of nature in the west evolved </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">within a circular exchange of ideas between science, technology and culture. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Jacquard looms coincided with
speculation about the existence of genes. In the 20th century photography made
time appear to stand still and pass more quickly or slowly. radio connected
distant lands and aeroplanes soared above landscapes that could be read as
revealed geology, but then nuclear </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNsPudMbzCOJ05u7qSl_S-rL4f4TlSCXFzw5jP6x71__QUgDYpG8dZz-OX9aqmGkhUG94B3JNGZClQLrX7Agc-UPWNTJrEpgXqRICmkIfKl7nwdFGnx6dFhWg3MmVAmHmQrKq1dpU3Gg/s1600/Coast+USAF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNsPudMbzCOJ05u7qSl_S-rL4f4TlSCXFzw5jP6x71__QUgDYpG8dZz-OX9aqmGkhUG94B3JNGZClQLrX7Agc-UPWNTJrEpgXqRICmkIfKl7nwdFGnx6dFhWg3MmVAmHmQrKq1dpU3Gg/s200/Coast+USAF.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Aerial photograph - USAF</span></b>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">physics and the space race caused this
narrative arc to break contact with perceptible nature and ordinary lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In this
information age computers and gene-editing technology allow simulations of
Earth systems and the transformation of <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8iYre2kXypW85yh1zeTdxG0QiBkGfoaIeduar6F45ZIbirkuOwP69ZOo-XQA61aw566I9gl15UsONLCmcccaEFfqGhShnPBni4zXRzwoKSeedYMIftoNMzmAwUazKOfcYZwin4CSAg/s1600/Water+in+the+Anthropocene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="560" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8iYre2kXypW85yh1zeTdxG0QiBkGfoaIeduar6F45ZIbirkuOwP69ZOo-XQA61aw566I9gl15UsONLCmcccaEFfqGhShnPBni4zXRzwoKSeedYMIftoNMzmAwUazKOfcYZwin4CSAg/s320/Water+in+the+Anthropocene.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">data realisation of Earth systems and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_editing">gene editing</a></span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
biology, but art struggles to adapt to
our changed relationship to nature. From the 16th century onwards oil paint was
the medium that allowed landscape painters to depict the solidity of nature
that could be owned as garden, farm, estate or empire. The idea of a tangible
nature was so sincerely believed in that the earliest attempt at producing a
periodic table of elements included heat and light. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHNlFCtxJFq2F5KJ2x3FARyseSujKQOV5DlZadg4tqbs0A_7YfyhJZeLQzGTG4KAa7Xl8xtoofmMOWaxhUcZasJCqYd_J4OShmxEm3N8ROifxGnKO06huGZ2Q27WlL3FyUEMXnJgfOXA/s1600/Dmitry_Mendeleyev_Osnovy_Khimii_1869-1871_first_periodic_table+BLOG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="1600" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHNlFCtxJFq2F5KJ2x3FARyseSujKQOV5DlZadg4tqbs0A_7YfyhJZeLQzGTG4KAa7Xl8xtoofmMOWaxhUcZasJCqYd_J4OShmxEm3N8ROifxGnKO06huGZ2Q27WlL3FyUEMXnJgfOXA/s640/Dmitry_Mendeleyev_Osnovy_Khimii_1869-1871_first_periodic_table+BLOG.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Periodic table of elements</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Dimitri
Mendeleev's revised periodic table was created in 1869 just</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> as impressionist
painters were starting to explore the ephemeral effects of light. The pictorial
dissolution of material certainty that was a feature of modern art<b> </b>presaged
Einstein's theories of relativity but, despite a brief dalliance between cubism
and relativity, 20th century art ignored new knowledge of nature from science.
However, architecture embraced ideas from engineering. Whereas classicism had
inspired <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKKC62nRU78so2H06zlaoUVBsygUCzIeL8xf275LY7oV2y6dckD6nwbG1frN75ojOA5iSsPPV05FJ-Ug49n8JmExvNzaQSz7sa28VfQxSjCOcwSWFO_esjQXYwsYFVlU1qjGPbJw9NQg/s1600/Platte+2+Werkbund+Exhibition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1068" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKKC62nRU78so2H06zlaoUVBsygUCzIeL8xf275LY7oV2y6dckD6nwbG1frN75ojOA5iSsPPV05FJ-Ug49n8JmExvNzaQSz7sa28VfQxSjCOcwSWFO_esjQXYwsYFVlU1qjGPbJw9NQg/s320/Platte+2+Werkbund+Exhibition.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">The entrance to the front</span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"> of the</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">administrative office building in </span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">the </span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Werkbund Exhibition at </span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cologne </span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">1914 (a)</span></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTbVQ9SXq40"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Strowger electro-mechanical exchange</span></b></a> </div>
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monumental constructions, modernist architects saw buildings as
structural frames potentially open to light; bridges over inhabited space. </span><b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;">(1)</span></b><b style="font-size: x-large;"> </b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The utility of vertical and horizontal planes in modernist architecture reflect the movements
of selectors in a 1930s electro-mechanical telephone exchange. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Whether
surrounded by racks of equipment in a telephone exchange or moving between the
rollers of a printing press to change the plates, the workers of the 20th
century were no longer standing beside machines but </span><span style="font-size: large;">were inside them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Overlapping with the emergence of modern art, the scale and power of industry
began to rival that of nature. The move from purely mechanical to electrically
powered machinery </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">subtly changed inhabited landscapes by altering the
relationship between <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVVuoL-Xg7A07B7BdBQIHfx1Gi7o_Ulb0gSKq328tycTQ746FcgkNJcKTJR128jv7VzVIyUVMJELewRKp8nSskG-LoSNHiT2S_Ue9tcvfgUAWlPyyU9Co0XFEgWIZM9KQqzrcI2t8wA/s1600/Platte+13+The+Siedlung.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="975" data-original-width="1600" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVVuoL-Xg7A07B7BdBQIHfx1Gi7o_Ulb0gSKq328tycTQ746FcgkNJcKTJR128jv7VzVIyUVMJELewRKp8nSskG-LoSNHiT2S_Ue9tcvfgUAWlPyyU9Co0XFEgWIZM9KQqzrcI2t8wA/s320/Platte+13+The+Siedlung.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i>Siedlung </i>of working-class </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">dwellings </span></span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">at </span></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dessau. (b)</span></span></b></div>
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settlements and sources of energy and water. Although
towns and cities established on fall-lines and coalfields still exist, the new
places of the 20th century were freed from reliance on nature by electricity
and pumped water.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The inexorable
logic of the grid that came from latitude and </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">longitude was applied to the
layout of cities such as post Haussmann <st1:city><st1:place>Paris</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state>. In his
adopted home </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTfvkCDz0a1Vi3_L6Eo1GNy4jtVpsVLyvLppzQCSdCEnOteSl5dtRHSW1FZGSbFMn2EUqoXzUyM2I9H7B9AfCf5u2emHkqEKQGkdP2vkEGtacDTwO98olBAAnifaBYLmSkxDR_0D66A/s1600/Mondrian+composition+in+Yellow%252C+Blue+and+Red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1129" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTfvkCDz0a1Vi3_L6Eo1GNy4jtVpsVLyvLppzQCSdCEnOteSl5dtRHSW1FZGSbFMn2EUqoXzUyM2I9H7B9AfCf5u2emHkqEKQGkdP2vkEGtacDTwO98olBAAnifaBYLmSkxDR_0D66A/s320/Mondrian+composition+in+Yellow%252C+Blue+and+Red.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Composition in Yellow, </i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Blue </i></span></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>and Red - </i></span></span></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><span style="text-align: center;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Piet Mondrian - </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Museum of Modern Art, </span></b></span></div>
</div>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>New York.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Piet Mondrian found inspiration in the grid layout of <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> and the
popular boogie-woogie music that was itself influenced by mechanical
player-pianos. The punched-paper rolls that recorded musical notes were a
successor to the Jacquard loom controlled by programmed cards. As Mondrian was
abstracting nature into blocks of colour the first experimental television
cameras were dissecting scenes into lines of light and dark.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kk0ytK_nqA">Television 1938</a></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/94x-jU8hr6Q/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/94x-jU8hr6Q?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94x-jU8hr6Q">Vertical scan yelevision</a></span></div>
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<b style="text-align: left;">19th century 'Magic Lantern' slide projections and cinema were the first media to </b><b style="text-align: left;">depend on artificial light. Analogue Televisions glow with their own internal light even when </b><b style="text-align: left;">no signal from a camera is present. By substituting a signal from a computer it </b><b style="text-align: left;">became possible to create moving images of fictional or simulated events from </b><b style="text-align: left;">mathematics in the 1980s. Simulations of Earth systems more ambitious than </b><b style="text-align: left;">anything i</b><b style="text-align: left;">magined </b><b style="text-align: left;">by Alexander von Humboldt are now routinely generated. </b><b style="text-align: left;">Susan Sontag's </b><b style="text-align: left;">prediction ( towards a new sensibility - against interpretation 1965 ) that a new cultural form bridging the divide between science and art is now a distinct possibility, and in the context of the Anthropocene, a necessity.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998"><span style="font-size: large;">Welcome to the Anthropocene</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Motivated by a
desire to achieve a universal system of aesthetics Modrian's progression from
impressionistic landscape pictures, through increasingly abstracted work, ended
with geometric compositions that did not depend on seeing nature at all. </span><b style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">(2)</span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"> </b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Paradoxically, science was already extending vision into the realms of the
microscopic and the invisible; x-rays, infra-red, radio(radar) </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">and </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"> sound</span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">(sonar).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXGKi5jQr0Wn6f0h2RlOHV6vu1eksErs_58lgRvCBrJiJ-kXVpcya7k0hxkm7NfuGJC27eXKFvwzPA4Xwt__t8wc_GopXkzayHkse4bGRSG7t5zOlW_ziAXTi3MZgDYcvmIhYpeIH5g/s1600/Cosmic+Ray+Showers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="593" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXGKi5jQr0Wn6f0h2RlOHV6vu1eksErs_58lgRvCBrJiJ-kXVpcya7k0hxkm7NfuGJC27eXKFvwzPA4Xwt__t8wc_GopXkzayHkse4bGRSG7t5zOlW_ziAXTi3MZgDYcvmIhYpeIH5g/s320/Cosmic+Ray+Showers.jpg" width="193" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Cosmic Ray Shower</b></span></td></tr>
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</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mondrian's ambitious attempt at culminating the debate about beauty,
that had engaged artists since the time of Plato and Aristotle, emulated
scientific reductionism which had promised to unwrap the complexity of nature. Science replaced
mysterious correspondences within alchemy and astrology by the bold assertion
that all of nature was a manifestation of just four fundamental forces;
gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">A deep simplicity
underlying the intricate appearances of the world </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">has been an appealing </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">idea
since Paleotithic cave paintings of animal-beings and the use of water features
in Persian gardens to symbolise the mythical four rivers of creation. The
Pharaoh Akhenaten's replacement of polytheism by the worship of the sun god
Aten changed the personification of natural forces towards a nascent form of
natural philosophy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The contemporary </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>poem
of praise to the sun </i>reveals an intuitive</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyWq60ZRwVgKfDuUWqKtNVw2g3rTMbBenrVi6B5v081QB8kPgQawMbtzzkwJNuA6irDwlAEd3uGsdosYC2R_TBU-OPUOIjHAFoh0xfxoBPN58KffZoQz1Bn10xV7bgTAUERVARbL2wg/s1600/Akhenaton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="352" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyWq60ZRwVgKfDuUWqKtNVw2g3rTMbBenrVi6B5v081QB8kPgQawMbtzzkwJNuA6irDwlAEd3uGsdosYC2R_TBU-OPUOIjHAFoh0xfxoBPN58KffZoQz1Bn10xV7bgTAUERVARbL2wg/s400/Akhenaton.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">.<b>Above - Akhenaton,Nefertiti,and three daughters</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><u>Poem in Praise if the Sun</u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>."When you arise from the horizon the earth grows bright;</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>You
shine as the Aten in the sky and drive away the darkness;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>When
your rays gleam forth, the whole of <st1:country-region>Egypt</st1:country-region> is festive.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>People
wake up and stand on their feet<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>For
you have lifted them up.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>They
wash their limbs and take up their clothes and dress;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>They
raise their arms to you in adoration.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Then
the whole of the land does its work;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>All
cattle enjoy their pastures,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Trees
and plants grow green,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Birds
fly up from their nests<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>And
raise their wings in praise of their spirit.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Goats
frisk on their feet, <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>And
all fluttering and flying things come alive.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Because
you shine on them.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Boats
sail up and downstream,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>All
ways are opened because you have appeared.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The
fish in the river leap up to you<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Your
rays are in the deep of the sea."...</b></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">understanding of how life temporarily diverts energy that is flowing
from a place of concentration. The poem's evocative description of the
fecundity of life, emanating from the sun, is ascribed to Aten. Amalgamating
the organising powers of </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">previous demoted gods, Aten was an early explanation
of what came to be regarded as nature. After echoing through Classical Greek,
Roman and Renaissance cultures the imagination of nature evolved via history
painting into a commodity with a wider audience than that of portraiture and
without reliance on the patronage of the church. In the Dutch Golden Age the
merchant class could express their status through a taste for portraits of
nature.</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Landscape art
established a relationship to nature like that of the gardener who tends to
specific plants. The landscape painter selected a view of nature that could
imply ideas of beauty, grandeur, order, virtue, security or adventure by
gathering together images of trees, rivers and mountains into a specific
composition. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For landscape art to succeed aesthetically and commercially it was important for these elements garnered from the world to be placed within a
recognisable spectrum of taste, from picturesque Arcadia to sublime
wilderness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWkL_CbVMUqv-frVM0kjLFO3Ybgo4ktlZEWCuHPk2TeYXQrMtvtCYC0poynFlS-mbTaC3zvU2h7zqB4XfLDU7MVL1xng7y_9rV2qddXUWZYZZ4DAXaDDmmKlElDJGf11wx_DqiA1sHA/s1600/Wooded+landscape+with+figures+walking+by+a+sandy+bank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="600" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWkL_CbVMUqv-frVM0kjLFO3Ybgo4ktlZEWCuHPk2TeYXQrMtvtCYC0poynFlS-mbTaC3zvU2h7zqB4XfLDU7MVL1xng7y_9rV2qddXUWZYZZ4DAXaDDmmKlElDJGf11wx_DqiA1sHA/s200/Wooded+landscape+with+figures+walking+by+a+sandy+bank.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Wooded landscape </b></span></i><br />
<i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>with figures walking </b></span></i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Manchester Art Gallery</b></span><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0IiB9Pn7g"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Polders</b></span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A Dutch
painting <i>Wooded landscape with figures walking by a sandy bank</i> by
Jan Wijnants (1632 -1684) is a picturesque scene featuring a transformed former
coastline left behind by the exclusion of the sea from a polder. Wijnants left
us with one of the earliest painted records of the Anthropocene, our present
epoch in which nature and artifice are interacting to create a world
without true wilderness and with new challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Large scale land
reclamation from the sea coincided with a new </span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">attitude to nature. Whereas the Greek poet Hesiod had imagined </span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">that a process of decline caused a
Golden Age to be lost to a Silver Age and then a Bronze age etc, by the time of
the industrial<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8Yd-ZP3tEXd6SbaGXHu5DJ3xz2WLB0xjAGdAMTfy8JLOctFV5CA26_Kj0o4zu1T1c6UJ-lrOLqNbyh5q80fPIciwotHGEuhCO6DJcec0Me-LYE6gp3pBgxwRZsOFkjrGXliqGxe1Lg/s1600/Joseph+Wright+Philosophers+stone+ADJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1037" data-original-width="799" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8Yd-ZP3tEXd6SbaGXHu5DJ3xz2WLB0xjAGdAMTfy8JLOctFV5CA26_Kj0o4zu1T1c6UJ-lrOLqNbyh5q80fPIciwotHGEuhCO6DJcec0Me-LYE6gp3pBgxwRZsOFkjrGXliqGxe1Lg/s400/Joseph+Wright+Philosophers+stone+ADJ.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"> The Alchemist in Search of the </span></i></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Philosophers' </i></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> Stone </i></span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">imagines </span></b><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">the discovery of phosphorous.</span></b></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">revolution Joseph Wright of <st1:city><st1:place>Derby</st1:place></st1:city> (1734-1797) was
visualising the optimism of scientific rationalism. Wright used what could now
be called film noir<i> </i>lighting in dramatic scenes of experiments </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">witnessed
by awed onlookers. As well as painting fashionably sublime pictures he created <i>Alchemist
in </i></span></span><i style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Search of the </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Philosophers' Stone </i>and <i>An Iron Forge</i> in which<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">sunlight
is replaced by the artificial light of phosphorous and incandescent metal. In
the 21st century, after the enthusiasm for the </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">'white heat of technology' has cooled, the Anthropocene has cast a more searching critique of technology and nature to which art is starting to respond</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">.<b>(3)</b></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjaOnh705u0zd3tDej4prvByjHzvWjGUC_A7ntUegAzLER_paGGTnOWDfChJUIpunYjY9D_enZeTdpEgE-RKQtGbh46Ab4kENrmNdut53WYyDvhmS3TkUt1sLC8rWpWfVEb5R44uUhA/s1600/T06670_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="1536" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjaOnh705u0zd3tDej4prvByjHzvWjGUC_A7ntUegAzLER_paGGTnOWDfChJUIpunYjY9D_enZeTdpEgE-RKQtGbh46Ab4kENrmNdut53WYyDvhmS3TkUt1sLC8rWpWfVEb5R44uUhA/s320/T06670_10.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>An Iron Forge </b></span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.derbymuseums.org/joseph-wright-derby"><span style="font-size: large;">Joseph Wright paintings at Derby Museuems</span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(1) (a) (b) </b>GROPIUS, Walter. The New Architecture of the Bauhaus. London: Faber and Faber, 1935. (1965, 1968.)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(2)</b> Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art Vol. 13, No. 4/5, Eleven Europeans in America (1946), pages 35 - 37.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(3) </b>Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments & Epistemologies editor Davis, H, Turpi, E . Open Humanities Press.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8713591-utopias-6"><span style="font-size: large;">Utopias 6 on Blurb </span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMv1jr6qhalyMsrF-9j8uDop1pI-0eM_XU6a-dd3ZGsNE_EnmVGV1ji_hAYsqFTLA1576HbK1IeLccG9nIK4b833SF15Mg2HPdz2iNvsiJPkN6xyvKje2fLpuATw05HLKHdi4b8h-Yw/s1600/Utopias+6+dashboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="1310" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMv1jr6qhalyMsrF-9j8uDop1pI-0eM_XU6a-dd3ZGsNE_EnmVGV1ji_hAYsqFTLA1576HbK1IeLccG9nIK4b833SF15Mg2HPdz2iNvsiJPkN6xyvKje2fLpuATw05HLKHdi4b8h-Yw/s640/Utopias+6+dashboard.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/8698832-portfolio-john-stockton">Portfolio on Blurb</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/John-Stockton-Art-1964229510470340/">John Stockton Art on Facebook.</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-78610881817063266312017-04-05T18:39:00.001+01:002021-06-20T23:11:29.242+01:00UTOPIAS - 5 : A Different kind of Water<br />
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDt0vA4l0EDyG6sRVvA09i5H83Mjx3JEO9pjzZfaUWActxWMQe44cSHuabWm0luLN_ZMECDLXKOol0msGOCqH_LrmuylN0kcp4WPAijjNiU3AdhUYu1ye7FRI3L5tl9Na8fSN5RDqxw/s1600/3+mile+border.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDt0vA4l0EDyG6sRVvA09i5H83Mjx3JEO9pjzZfaUWActxWMQe44cSHuabWm0luLN_ZMECDLXKOol0msGOCqH_LrmuylN0kcp4WPAijjNiU3AdhUYu1ye7FRI3L5tl9Na8fSN5RDqxw/s200/3+mile+border.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcdqFfYscQeVtkBvttAeCkKa3Jz9kVDlTHc9wXPjlLbwUoVvn4uJdNGQLWNEAVEQ5sVMPgiRNSLpWSql5z9jvJ7BSaQWnF8xrgcZ_hDmR0DdEiwvgxePkuDoViyQ0Hxa6H0VA-FGmc2A/s1600/UTOPIAS+5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIa9sRZr8hyphenhyphencRIfRjog-ZGvOs4SjBHY7GyGkh63aDtiqYbk6laMlhB2TCzVnSWUBtK9YSbdTmsNWimM8GJwj8-al32WHv5749nJpnrCm-A_rG7ESm5xNGZSg9lWhpsuntn4ZeZqX7yBw/s1600/UTOPIAS+5+wide.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIa9sRZr8hyphenhyphencRIfRjog-ZGvOs4SjBHY7GyGkh63aDtiqYbk6laMlhB2TCzVnSWUBtK9YSbdTmsNWimM8GJwj8-al32WHv5749nJpnrCm-A_rG7ESm5xNGZSg9lWhpsuntn4ZeZqX7yBw/s640/UTOPIAS+5+wide.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">T<span style="font-family: inherit;">o forestall its use for a Nazi </span>atomic bomb a 187 litre quantity
of heavy water was moved from </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: inherit;"><st1:place><span style="font-size: large;">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> to </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: inherit;"><st1:place><span style="font-size: large;">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> in June 1940. Heavy water, or deuterium
oxide, is isotopically different from ordinary water, making it useful in the
production of</span></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOj0VrKY3sp23ivpEamROd5kQmZL-B8xO-e3SMoIPg0B29D_Q4SdlLYgFi-UJSnN1w67Z6Ag6bD_5eqkj4pVrKu34_T91UZcry3TqrULWcro7S5h9aKnCL4KwM7gxh-lqj3WL9Mfqsw/s1600/Nagasaki_1945_-_Before_and_after_adjusted.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOj0VrKY3sp23ivpEamROd5kQmZL-B8xO-e3SMoIPg0B29D_Q4SdlLYgFi-UJSnN1w67Z6Ag6bD_5eqkj4pVrKu34_T91UZcry3TqrULWcro7S5h9aKnCL4KwM7gxh-lqj3WL9Mfqsw/s320/Nagasaki_1945_-_Before_and_after_adjusted.jpg" width="289" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></span></b></b><span style="font-size: small;"><st1:city><st1:place><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagasaki</span></b></st1:place></st1:city><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> before and after the
detonation </span></b></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">of a nuclear bomb utilising 6.4 kg
of the</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">artificial element plutonium of which</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 kg was converted to enough energy to</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">kill 35-40,000 people. A hydrogen bomb</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">is approximately 1000 times more
powerful.</span></span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>
</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">plutonium. The water was initially hidden at Wormwood Scrubs
prison in <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city> and later in the library at <st1:place><st1:placename>Windsor</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Castle</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The story has a surreal quality that
reflects the extent to which science changed our relationship with nature.
Large amounts of hydro-electricity had been used at the Vemork plant in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Norway</st1:place></st1:country-region> to accumulate this special form of water
that superficially appeared normal, but offered a rout to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner">immense power.</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The psychological unease produced when something as seemingly
familiar as water is revealed to be strangely different was described by Ernst
Jentsch in 1906 and by Sigmund <a href="http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf">Freud</a> in 1919 in their essays on the uncanny.
The concept of the uncanny was originally applied to personal experience but
20th century science also revealed nature to be strangely unfamiliar. Rare but
naturally occurring, heavy water was concentrated at the Vemork plant and
considered so important it was worth fighting for and dying for. As an emblem
of power, derived from nature and held in the hands of the righteous, heavy
water could almost belong in the type of history painting that preceded
landscape art. It was like a modern version of holy water bound for the
cathedrals of technology such as were the reactor halls of the 20th century.
Atomic physics challenged landscape art as a paradigm of nature when art was
already experiencing rapid changes. The first two decades of the century included; Albert <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02144gl">Einstein's</a> and Ernest <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y23q">Rutherford's</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">discoveries, development
of; the aeroplane, radio, photography and cinema, the emergence of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/05/06/reviews/010506.06everdet.html">Cubist</a> art,
and the <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20070">1st World War</a>. Since its origins in the <st1:country-region><st1:place>Netherlands</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the 16th century landscape art had
contemplated natural scenes and helped to formulate the concept of nature
within secular culture. 20th century science changed this as it rendered
uncanny images of nature, an unintended consequence of research that continues
to the present. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Another contemporary rift between art and nature was referred to
by Holger Cahill in his introduction to the catalogue for the 1936 exhibition <i>New
Horizons in American Art: <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> "Throughout most of
the eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth the concept of nature had
served as a unifying element in literature as well as the fine arts. Nature had
been conceived as a principle underlying the forms and phenomena of the visual
world, drawing them into a harmonious and purposive whole, benevolent and
somehow friendly to man's interests and ideals. Art had been conceived as a
harmony dependent on the harmony of nature." <b>(1)<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Describing how the Hudson River school of landscape painting had
been founded on the conception of nature as a unifying force, and how this idea
was swept aside by modern art, Holger Cahill went on to lament the
post-impressionist idea that "art is a harmony paralleling that of
nature" (stated by Paul Cézanne) implying instead that art could be freed
from the intellectual pretensions of European art movements, </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8u9Qrt2rAaeZbQpqHPzh5a9PCE-QFJOGplslEo1rC8tunCa2MQ0ATszAOlT4hM8c0i1nNhMUGo0toWeWdmGEp1bPnxCATufVHeUT6TUvY5piAENMrTRJU2FEjltaBl_jA51-xodWI_A/s1600/Karl+Fortess+-+Winter+Vista+copy.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8u9Qrt2rAaeZbQpqHPzh5a9PCE-QFJOGplslEo1rC8tunCa2MQ0ATszAOlT4hM8c0i1nNhMUGo0toWeWdmGEp1bPnxCATufVHeUT6TUvY5piAENMrTRJU2FEjltaBl_jA51-xodWI_A/s320/Karl+Fortess+-+Winter+Vista+copy.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Karl Fortress -<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Winter Vista </i><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Reproduced in black and white in <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<a href="http://www.artic.edu/sites/default/files/libraries/pubs/1937/AIC1937NewHrznAmArt_comb.pdf"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>New Horizons in American Art</b></i></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">democratised and
made relevant to all citizens through a programme of public works. The pictures
presented in <i>New Horizons in American Art </i>operate a folk art aesthetic
that celebrates the dignity of labour and emphasises the fulfilment of human
potential with landscape functioning as a stage on which the pathos of lived
experience could be enacted. Holger Cahill implicitly assumed an uncomplicated
relationship with nature. The new discoveries of science are not referred to, as
if the laws of nature could remain in the background like a cat's cradle of
elemental forces wrapped around the hands of a benevolent creator.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Federal Art Project that financed the creation of the pictures
shown in <i>New Horizons in American Art </i>was part of a wider programme of
government interventions made necessary by the Wall Street Crash and the
subsequent economic depression. As well as other Federal Art projects in the
1930s the U.S. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QJxcpr6fEHmJcoQnpdyOS7JqAvDqj6UmNmu1y8lln6qZk81zjmcQoMMqnnd4NNduPi7pFRrRQba3k_BYiEYwkATkc4EQJLUHim3gT0H6tKmXxTktLnKbCG4l3vJvFIlQF-71vO90KA/s1600/1930s-galleryK-0687.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QJxcpr6fEHmJcoQnpdyOS7JqAvDqj6UmNmu1y8lln6qZk81zjmcQoMMqnnd4NNduPi7pFRrRQba3k_BYiEYwkATkc4EQJLUHim3gT0H6tKmXxTktLnKbCG4l3vJvFIlQF-71vO90KA/s320/1930s-galleryK-0687.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Technological Sublime </b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">TVA</span></b></a></span></td></tr>
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government </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">founded the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) which
undertook a series of hydro-electric dam and flood control schemes designed to
tame the river system and also provide electricity and employment in the
region. The long-lasting cultural traction produced by the TVA and similar
engineering around the world was qualitatively different from that of the
earlier era of canal building (in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> at the start of the industrial revolution)
which reached a peak of achievement with the excavation of the <st1:city><st1:place>Suez</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Panama</st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> waterways. Whereas canals were slotted
into the landscape and filled with water, hydro-electric dams straddled the
land creating lakes where none had existed and harnessed the power of water
driven by gravity. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDCjiAYabFLxlJz0cS_RdC03xHE5VjaHYhn_VaTehR6zZIj7ZFX6DYxw0GZPU3mWRMARQEX34XOFhJV0zeeZRJDKK_4UKj4uDUYFVOsHamlp8UzQXEyBz4LYNJy2rmtYTQMbRzzHRGQ/s1600/hb_49.128.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDCjiAYabFLxlJz0cS_RdC03xHE5VjaHYhn_VaTehR6zZIj7ZFX6DYxw0GZPU3mWRMARQEX34XOFhJV0zeeZRJDKK_4UKj4uDUYFVOsHamlp8UzQXEyBz4LYNJy2rmtYTQMbRzzHRGQ/s320/hb_49.128.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/49.128/"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Chales Sheeler "Water" 1945</b></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The engineered landscapes celebrated by artists such as Charles
Sheeler are very different from the horse-driven world depicted in John
Constable's <i>Flatford Mill (Scene on a </i><st1:place><st1:placename><i>Navigable</i></st1:placename><i> </i><st1:placetype><i>River</i></st1:placetype></st1:place><i>).</i><b> </b>The <a href="http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/?gclid=CI2Qu7Whg9MCFewV0wodG-gFtA">Anthropocene</a> is the current geological epoch in which humans have a greater
effect on Earth systems than natural processes. There is debate as to when it
began, but its onset seems to coincide with the cultural change that allowed
the idea of sublime beauty to become associated with technology. Sheeler
claimed that "our factories are our substitute for religious
expression." David Nye retrospectively used the term the 'technological
sublime' to describe<b> </b>the relocation of the feelings of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/aircraft-by-le-corbusier">grandeur and awe</a> from nature to technology.<b> (2)<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In 1936, the <st1:place>Mount Palomar</st1:place> telescope was another eagerly anticipated project. As the </span><span style="font-size: large;">mirror
blank was moved by rail from the </span><st1:city style="font-size: x-large;"><st1:place><span style="font-size: large;">Corning</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: large;"> glass factory to the Caltech optical shop
in</span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5QtPc6lhUVUl1TlOdNsrqjZ74Xk6bTYUTQzdV3Se7Z9f2aYZy8ydW2eseluVa59pUgTVwsQH-3RPDXJyGLPVT6olVuio94iLxNSdnvuRpJNhnQOjBkKd57YKO9EP-JreALwpvgPe0yw/s1600/HaleTelescopeDedicationThumbnail.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5QtPc6lhUVUl1TlOdNsrqjZ74Xk6bTYUTQzdV3Se7Z9f2aYZy8ydW2eseluVa59pUgTVwsQH-3RPDXJyGLPVT6olVuio94iLxNSdnvuRpJNhnQOjBkKd57YKO9EP-JreALwpvgPe0yw/s320/HaleTelescopeDedicationThumbnail.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nearly 1000 guests are dwarfed </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.8px;">by the</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mount</span></b></div>
<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Palomar Telescope </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">at the dedication </span></b></b><br />
<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ceremony</span></b></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">in 1948. </span></b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/history.html" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">LINK</span></a></span></b></b></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><st1:city><st1:place>Pasadena</st1:place></st1:city>, thousands of interested people lined the
train tracks to watch the unfinished crated article pass. 12 years before the
completion of the telescope in its art deco dome on top of <st1:place>Mount Palomar</st1:place> the project had already managed to unite
the sublime notion of nature, as expressed by Edmund Burke in 1757, with the technological
sublime. But even the technological sublime </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_4TB7OU7mrubUzW8upvgc-vXW9Cz0pLUozXEGusY5e_BfuvtARHQ-HyhtB3N4vsqm2yoiUn7KW6X8t5mtW4iEpHlWwqnLfrBJfV-IHkCExs59vrTDCoW2iLwhS6TUSMQ7VFOhkSM6w/s1600/dustbowl-pix800a.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_4TB7OU7mrubUzW8upvgc-vXW9Cz0pLUozXEGusY5e_BfuvtARHQ-HyhtB3N4vsqm2yoiUn7KW6X8t5mtW4iEpHlWwqnLfrBJfV-IHkCExs59vrTDCoW2iLwhS6TUSMQ7VFOhkSM6w/s320/dustbowl-pix800a.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Before European settlers arrived the ecology</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">of the </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">North </span></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">American plains had depended on </b></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">deep rooted </b></span></b></span><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">grasses </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">to </b></b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">stabilise the soil. Deep</b></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">ploughing </b></b><b style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">and a </b></b><b style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">series of </b></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">droughts </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">caused</b></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">disastrous </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">topsoil loss and </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">500,000 </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">people</b></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">to </b></span></b><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">become homeless.</b></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">has a fearful aspect, symbolised in
the 1930's by the Dust Bowl agricultural disaster. After years of destructive ploughing topsoil was lost from a 400,000 sq. km area of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> prairies in a series of
storms. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subsequently contour
ploughing became a way of reducing soil</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQiyKGoPo_CEptRAqXyU6wQPMiC3fc1mPKmbqRUAvX7kVudtM-WNbibr7Q61RA4o0xvYLui-gIewcimUMFEI5DVYvWn8PhXR6Y_OAqv7-fRGn6nvfej8vmzy9amNmxiLskdHGkzjhmA/s1600/Contour+plough+small.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQiyKGoPo_CEptRAqXyU6wQPMiC3fc1mPKmbqRUAvX7kVudtM-WNbibr7Q61RA4o0xvYLui-gIewcimUMFEI5DVYvWn8PhXR6Y_OAqv7-fRGn6nvfej8vmzy9amNmxiLskdHGkzjhmA/s320/Contour+plough+small.jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Margaret Bourke-White</b></span></span></td></tr>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> erosion,
recorded in an almost abstract photograph by Margaret Bourke-White. It shows
wavy furrows, made by a tractor as it translated the contour lines of a map
into physical reality, resembling the loops and whorls of a fingerprint. By the
1950s even photography was influenced by abstraction. In the post-war era
'ambitious' artists gave up on landscape.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtGtvttu0SK9BYFR7GBBA9z-08-inUy2uV1UwMOPMEFgeFrbUga3KzPlGf9hIMw_wi3S0sLgMHs0Bj_gYSU8XYFVhFnLlKkP880FUVvwV1LgqUXgc83W3ZKmxw913sz8dY5pzgQ7o5Sg/s1600/Bubblechamber.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtGtvttu0SK9BYFR7GBBA9z-08-inUy2uV1UwMOPMEFgeFrbUga3KzPlGf9hIMw_wi3S0sLgMHs0Bj_gYSU8XYFVhFnLlKkP880FUVvwV1LgqUXgc83W3ZKmxw913sz8dY5pzgQ7o5Sg/s400/Bubblechamber.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Invented in 1952, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_chamber">bubble chambers</a> were used to <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">photograph paths of subatomic particles. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">"It seems to me that the modern painter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">cannot express his age, the airplane, the atom bomb,<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"> of any past culture. Each age finds its
own technique."<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Jackson Pollock in a recorded
interview in 1950.</span></b></div>
<b style="font-size: 12.8px;"></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jackson-pollock-1785">Jackson Pollock's</a> 1950s abstract
'action' paintings resemble the tracks of subatomic particles seen in
bubble-chamber photographs. Ansel Adams depicted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmelian_Prints_of_the_High_Sierras">High Sierra</a> of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>U.S.A.</st1:place></st1:country-region> with an uncanny 'scientific’ clarity in
his 10" x 8" format photographs. Minor White explored the border of
science and art by using infrared film to create black and white <a href="http://google.co.uk/search?q=minor+white+infrared&hl=en&site=webhp&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlgZDOkYLTAhUKAsAKHSBgDK8QsAQIIA&biw=1320&bih=685&dpr=1.09">landscape</a> photographs in which foliage glows white. In 1956 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Kepes">Gyorgy Kepes</a> <b>(3) </b>suggested
that a synthesis of science and art could renew the cultural perception of
nature, but the two disciplines continued to survey the world in their
individual ways. Although landscape art remains popular, art history tries to
end its story with the late modernist land-art movement - featuring
constructions or excavations made in remote locations of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> by artists such as Robert Smithson and
Walter De Maria.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Smithson is remembered for <i>Spiral Jetty</i> (1970) which he
created</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">by tipping 6,650 tons of rock into the <st1:place>Great Salt Lake</st1:place> in <st1:state><st1:place>Utah</st1:place></st1:state>. The <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUn1WE3ww12WzRbLM-CsLOY81LJP5DDug1_6GTG_lQhPSy_vS6_hVK6TzQ5fgVaVmVjTlPUK8MiQXWBhlp9fstQ1lHpyKbQJaQUJqhmHon9CADdA_ifFQBEYyVBjyqUfmfRhhWob9Nw/s1600/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUn1WE3ww12WzRbLM-CsLOY81LJP5DDug1_6GTG_lQhPSy_vS6_hVK6TzQ5fgVaVmVjTlPUK8MiQXWBhlp9fstQ1lHpyKbQJaQUJqhmHon9CADdA_ifFQBEYyVBjyqUfmfRhhWob9Nw/s320/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.robertsmithson.com/earthworks/spiral_jetty.htm"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Spiral Jetty</b></span></a></td></tr>
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resulting 4.6 metre wide causeway is
460 meters long and leads away from the bank and spirals in on itself for two
and a quarter turns. </span><span style="font-size: large;">In New Mexico, De Maria’s </span><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lightning Field</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: large;">(1977) is a construction of 400 stainless steel poles set vertically and 22 feet </span><span style="font-size: large;">apart in a grid one mile by one kilometre and is designed to </span><span style="font-size: large;">attract lightning to the ground, although this has been photographed only </span><span style="font-size: large;">once.</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGpBbwke7CyQlnFUJP0mCSAcFNEj229wZqxEuNXIcWrPFwh1kQUc_7xFpr4gWFnHU_fjeRRBpYvs30SJUQY-Mq0Zq7hryfke18vXTS2jbnbXyMI6SNDYB_twvxr9RLt9dRmgK4PFXkQ/s1600/55._lightning_field-122_high_res.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGpBbwke7CyQlnFUJP0mCSAcFNEj229wZqxEuNXIcWrPFwh1kQUc_7xFpr4gWFnHU_fjeRRBpYvs30SJUQY-Mq0Zq7hryfke18vXTS2jbnbXyMI6SNDYB_twvxr9RLt9dRmgK4PFXkQ/s400/55._lightning_field-122_high_res.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><em>The Lightning Field</em> is </b><b>Commissioned and </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>maintained </b></span><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>by the</b></span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: center;"><b> Dia Art Foundation.</b></b></span></b><br />
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<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: center;">
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<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.diaart.org/visit/visit/walter-de-maria-the-lightning-field">Link</a></b></b></span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"></b><br />
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<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Smithson and De Maria became the first notable artists of
the Anthropocene by emulating the processes that define it. The 21st century
challenge to art is to reflect the interaction between nature and artifice as
climate change and synthetic biology become the norm.</span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Welcome to the Anthropocene</span></a> </span> <span style="color: #38761d;">(3 minute 38 second video)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7855275-utopias-5"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">UTOPIAS 5 on Blurb</span></a> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Artwork from page 6 </span>onward<span style="font-family: inherit;"> by John Stockton)</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><b>(1) </b><span style="font-family: inherit;">THE </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><st1:place><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">MUSEUM</span></st1:placetype><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"> OF </span><st1:placename><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">MODERN</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"> </span><st1:stockticker><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">ART</span></st1:stockticker><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">. <i><b>New horizons in American art</b>.</i> </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">New York</span></st1:place></st1:state></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">:<i> </i>reprinted edition. Arno Press,
1969, pp.12</span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>(2)</b> NYE, David E. <i><b>American technological sublime</b></i>. Cambridge,</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mass: MIT Press, 1994.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";"><b>(3)</b> KEPES, Gyorgy. <i><b>The new landscape in art and science.</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman mt";">Chicago: Paul Theobald and Co., 1956</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"People never tire of recalling that Leonardo da Vinci advised painters who lacked inspiration when faced with nature, to contemplate with a reflective eye the crack in an old wall! For there is a map of the universe in the lines that time draws on these old walls. And each of us has seen a few lines on the ceiling that appear to chart a new continent. A poet knows all this. But in order to describe in his own way a universe of this kind, created by chance on the confines of sketch and dream, he goes to live in it. He finds a corner where he can abide in this cracked-ceiling world."</span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> Gaston Bachelard. Corners - The Poetics of Space. (1958)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuB5rwn7GRBpDcqTi9uxT6FITfEl_Ojnv6-3Px31CPGIORGhTHE6Pu-G5cTCzeSyGM-7KAnP9UizcAkMqtF_6tZq4wYKrQfU9Mwk2f-5KhMx_E2UBYE6w32qkKQJ-m_CWoLZ9rQJXqlQ/s1600/Bathers+Cornwall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuB5rwn7GRBpDcqTi9uxT6FITfEl_Ojnv6-3Px31CPGIORGhTHE6Pu-G5cTCzeSyGM-7KAnP9UizcAkMqtF_6tZq4wYKrQfU9Mwk2f-5KhMx_E2UBYE6w32qkKQJ-m_CWoLZ9rQJXqlQ/s640/Bathers+Cornwall.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/4064859-6x6">Cornwall - 1994 - John Stockton</a></span></div>
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</div>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-22169797180963598572017-02-19T20:00:00.000+00:002017-02-19T20:00:07.503+00:00Utopias 4 - The Sublime, the Beautiful, the Picturesque and the Uncanny. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFL1FzDQ-EVH63OMg_6qPBUvnwy8r5xXdbjwFUMbObaL0PMAyzf5DOYSoUMm1aYAXAaYZUydNgj77mglyYhauvC1PuIXEsN3Wm6j1DrOrEco6-ffbKw0lmqGzZOLDuBe9xGhhmyhbLuw/s1600/UTOPIAS+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFL1FzDQ-EVH63OMg_6qPBUvnwy8r5xXdbjwFUMbObaL0PMAyzf5DOYSoUMm1aYAXAaYZUydNgj77mglyYhauvC1PuIXEsN3Wm6j1DrOrEco6-ffbKw0lmqGzZOLDuBe9xGhhmyhbLuw/s320/UTOPIAS+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7761596-utopias-4" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Utopias 4</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Although astronomy consigned 'the music of the spheres' to
history, the link between music and science is not entirely lost. Beatrice
Tinsley (who worked on the 'life-time' changes of galaxies) was a talented
musician and Bernard Lovell (the first Director of the Jodrell Bank radio
telescope) played the organ at his local church. It seems that the musical
ability of some scientists is part of their desire to understand the rules of
nature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) wanted to believe in the music of the
spheres but his laws of planetary motion eventually created our modern idea of
'outer space'. <b>(1) </b></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9SjEU8ufBUR28mmZK7fN_tp2pTKHGV7BEK7DW5odD_0sMRL4_kILyOEcvHRpQmxbARUJPS1gZHy25gMzI9sxn2vE_TobO130LRoyNy6oXPO5lvOeY4QfdrPn9XMXjghuUhfk5ACgAw/s1600/Kepler-solar-system-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9SjEU8ufBUR28mmZK7fN_tp2pTKHGV7BEK7DW5odD_0sMRL4_kILyOEcvHRpQmxbARUJPS1gZHy25gMzI9sxn2vE_TobO130LRoyNy6oXPO5lvOeY4QfdrPn9XMXjghuUhfk5ACgAw/s200/Kepler-solar-system-1.png" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Frontispiece to<br />Johannes Kepler's<br /><i>Mysterium cosmographicum</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">removal of crystal spheres from cosmology
replaced them with locations in emptiness. As music is composed of notes, and
the intervals between them, natural philosophers realised that emptiness is
part of nature. The discovery that the greater the distance a planet orbits the
sun the slower it moves suggested that that the motion of stars is not seen
because they are so very far away. No longer believed to be attached to a
common sphere (like the back-wall of a stage with moving scenery in front) it
was possible to imagine the vast distance to the stars, the gulf of space
between them and the darkness of the interstellar void.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Isaac Newton’s development of Kepler's work and the exploration of
successively more unfamiliar and fearfully vast regions contributed to a
gradual shift in the appreciation of nature. From the time of Classical Greece
to the Renaissance the known world could be divided into civilised cultivated
space and the wild forests and mountains. By the 18th century the scale of the
wild areas of the globe, relative to the more familiar cities and farms, was
apparent. Captain James Cook circumnavigated </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Antarctica</span></st1:place></span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> in 1773 and, without attempting to put
ashore, supposed the existence of a frozen continent from rocks seen embedded
in floating ice. </span><span style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">This challenge to the collective imagination of the scale of wild
nature occurred as the essayist John Hall introduced the idea of the sublime to
</span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"> through his translations of the Roman
writer Longinus. The sublime became a theme within literature and art that was
made fashionable by Edmund Burke from 1757</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Georgia W02 Regular"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Georgia W02 Regular";">.</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"> His book <i>a
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful </i>became the must-have book of the eighteenth century and coincided
with the emergence of landscape art from the domination of history painting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">The <i>Enquiry</i> was possibly the greatest literary influence on
visual art since the philosophy of Classical Greece. Burke was the first to
connect the sublime with the concept of power and distinguished it from beauty
in way that expanded the possibilities for landscape artists. In the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Netherlands</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"> the picturesque style had become a
marketing formula for the original landscape painters whose guilds helped to
commercialise their paintings, etchings and engravings. Although their picturesque scenes became less
representative as lake drainage, coastal reclamation and land improvement created
the type of artificial and intensively farmed landscape familiar today, the
style grew in popularity. Burke's <i>Enquiry</i> was not written specifically
as art criticism, his comments were about the effect of nature on the senses
and emotions, but the influence that he
had on subsequent landscape art can be gauged from: </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;"> '<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: large;"><b>Part 3 - section XXVII</b></span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>. <i>The Sublime and Beautiful compared:</i></b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">" For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful
ones comparatively small; beauty should be smooth, and polished; the great,
rugged and negligent; beauty should shun the right line, yet deviate from it
insensibly; the great in many cases loves the right line, and when it deviates,
it often makes a strong deviation; beauty should not be obscure; the great
ought to be dark and gloomy; beauty should be light and delicate; the great
ought to be solid, and even massive." </span><b><span style="font-size: large;">(2)</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Burke's<i> Enquiry </i>caused artists to notice the wild parts of
nature. The canonical works of sublime art depicted scenes of darkness, vast
scale and rugged mountains, but William Gilpin, in his <i>Three Essays on
Picturesque Beauty</i> (1792) and Uvedale Price, in his <i>Essays on the
Picturesque </i>(1794) wrote that picturesque art was a <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihVoGbLzxno72qROl_FQaYjtnYVAQaI9QJV19Gva5UTveUjMxh3Dk7wJOIMEaA1WTdZ91wJJvKEkhsUgM9oHfI_ADUTWtgF48hSDv7bd6T5EIRl8J12GoisouYYOk1iQmGS0MYm9qiA/s1600/Landscape+near+Rome+with+a+View+of+the+Ponte+Molle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihVoGbLzxno72qROl_FQaYjtnYVAQaI9QJV19Gva5UTveUjMxh3Dk7wJOIMEaA1WTdZ91wJJvKEkhsUgM9oHfI_ADUTWtgF48hSDv7bd6T5EIRl8J12GoisouYYOk1iQmGS0MYm9qiA/s200/Landscape+near+Rome+with+a+View+of+the+Ponte+Molle.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular';">Claude Lorrain</span><br /><i>Landscape near Rome with a <br />View of the Ponte Molle</i> (1645)</b></span></td></tr>
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third category, along
with the sublime and the beautiful. Although seemingly arcane today, these
distinctions provided a forum for public discourse fueling a nascent tourist
industry that had nature as a destination instead of religious shrines. A chain
of influence involved picturesque landscape pictures viewed and collected by
young gentlemen on their 'grand tours' of the cultural destinations of 18th
century </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Europe</span></st1:place></span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">. These landscape pictures promoted the
grand tour fashion and the experience of the journey<i> </i>was validated<i> </i>by
the purchase of picturesque art, which had an effect on the appearance of
country estates.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">Landscape pictures brought back from the continent inspired 18th
century landowners in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">England</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"> to remake their estates in a </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;">naturalistic
style. William Kent (1685–1748) used his architectural and theatre design
skills to create a landscape garden style opposed to geometric layouts.
Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1715 or 1716–1783) developed the style,
designing over 170 parks for the landed gentry who had sufficient wealth to </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">undertake</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9tD4C613C20f3xkYZXsLrBa56ZS8y0yGC5DYzakfc7waKOMv-lgEOVW1392e1MzQQ_2Q6BIi8ZjGXqyQ2k7-xEoPZKwcPJ9Ey0LJJmC8oTp79zLdeQzeGu5LxS_iLs0OoIkqesJWgQ/s1600/Capability.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9tD4C613C20f3xkYZXsLrBa56ZS8y0yGC5DYzakfc7waKOMv-lgEOVW1392e1MzQQ_2Q6BIi8ZjGXqyQ2k7-xEoPZKwcPJ9Ey0LJJmC8oTp79zLdeQzeGu5LxS_iLs0OoIkqesJWgQ/s320/Capability.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><b style="font-size: medium;"> Richard Payne Knight -<br /><i>The Landscape</i> (1794)</b></td></tr>
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gardening on the scale of civil</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">engineering. The parks deliberately included visual elements from paintings, such as those </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Claude Lorrain, becoming a physical manifestation of the
picturesque aesthetic.</span><span style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: center;">Landscape art succeeded by satisfying the desire for beauty as
well as suggesting that nature is meaningful and our place in it is purposeful.
Burke's account of the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sublime was fully realised through painting in in the
19th century in North American. For</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">new American citizens the style of the
sublime suited the profound enormity of nature in the <st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;">U.S.A.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> but without associations with the privilege
of aristocracy. The new wealth of businessmen paid for artists such as Albert
Bierstadt (1830-1902) to portray the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains with
paintings such as<i> Rocky</i> </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Mountains 'Lander's Peak' (</span></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><st1:place><st1:placename>Fogg</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Art
Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place>, <st1:place><st1:placename>Harvard</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>University</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype>Art
Museums)</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqCUkvU3Q0J8-PAP2j6I2p5OjYRqReOGo44NlsAHENmjBagOG3arnL0b2nmYF1ErZtdKH13IcwmT361edz3wlgwVL8dU8P3nAr-n7flIHVnQ0pN-qT9S_mqLMZL_rBDUG2vVIB9W4OA/s1600/urn-3+HUAM+52101_dynmc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqCUkvU3Q0J8-PAP2j6I2p5OjYRqReOGo44NlsAHENmjBagOG3arnL0b2nmYF1ErZtdKH13IcwmT361edz3wlgwVL8dU8P3nAr-n7flIHVnQ0pN-qT9S_mqLMZL_rBDUG2vVIB9W4OA/s320/urn-3+HUAM+52101_dynmc.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Georgia W02 Regular'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><st1:place><st1:placename>Fogg</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Art
Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place>, <br /><st1:place><st1:placename>Harvard</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>University</st1:placetype> <br /><st1:placetype>Art
Museums.</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/303976" target="_blank">Rocky Mountains 'Lander's Peak' (1863)</a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Landscape art (viewed in new public galleries and lithographic
copies) became part of the currency of debate about nature and the main genre
of 19th century Western art, but the publication of Robert Hooke's <i>Micrographia
</i>in </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;">1665 and the emergence of geology from canal building and mining had
already signified the opening of a divide between science and art. Bierstadt's
pictures became widely known and contributed to the belief in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> as manifest destiny. In the 20th century
modernism enlisted science to help formulate an international destiny, creating
a new relationship to nature not easily depicted in landscape art or gardens. <b>(3)
</b>Seeing with radar, sound, electrons and x-rays as well as discovering both
emptiness and immense power in the atom, the unmasked workings of nature placed
it beyond familiarity. Art had depicted nature as beautiful, sublime and
picturesque, now science made it uncanny.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEEq3X8e8EtRI8rnfdgvanpFJXxeObJfsqj7rzv8Tr_CxNZsC9KIwfD5t0sHq6eyAus65q-dLpW5w2k5jaRoTsy1YkBiPMgDZYHPKPPEYu82DYdJHGMqt6NYnEMU5lllX4oh7IEjWT4Q/s1600/Utopias+4+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEEq3X8e8EtRI8rnfdgvanpFJXxeObJfsqj7rzv8Tr_CxNZsC9KIwfD5t0sHq6eyAus65q-dLpW5w2k5jaRoTsy1YkBiPMgDZYHPKPPEYu82DYdJHGMqt6NYnEMU5lllX4oh7IEjWT4Q/s640/Utopias+4+blog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">LEFT:</span> Typhoon, Radar Photograph. U.S. Navy <span style="color: red;">CENTRE:</span> Lily. Radiograph: Eastman Kodak Company. <span style="color: red;">RIGHT</span>: </span></span>Cloud Chamber Photograph. Professor. G.E. Valley. M.I.T.</b><br />
<span style="font-family: 'georgia w02 regular'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> The New Landscape in Science and Art. Chicago 1956.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;">(1) JAMES, J. Kepler Pythagorises. In: The Music of the Spheres. London: Little, Brown and Company (UK) Limited, 1993.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;">(2) Revised edition. ISBN 0-631-15278-4: Basil Blackwell Ltd , 1987. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;"> Page 124.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;">(3) KEPES, G. The New Landscape in Science and Art. Chicago: Paul Theobold </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia w02 regular; font-size: 18.6667px;"> and Co. , 1956.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia w02 regular"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-3866618286991386022016-11-09T17:14:00.000+00:002019-03-02T13:37:41.804+00:002018 Diary<b><span style="font-size: large;"> 2018 Diary.</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/6623224/7e9853eb55dbfee07bf245d0cc8bf077a862d6b9" target="_blank">Preview on BLURB</a>John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-74666163442058038262016-05-03T22:35:00.001+01:002016-09-20T18:43:32.998+01:00Utopias - 3<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsvfqJpY0zKNzRyRgS9Bn-Z-tQTL_T8lCR4zO8e_Ev8CPVmjJZOqJZsMhgGx_W1qGw6fYoYxELYqS7AKhP4g1DGIBpZLfAop6R6IZdtMJhwObZfTftH6Z8EVUGZrGkgDOx1Q0PxmEJw/s1600/Utopias+-+3+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsvfqJpY0zKNzRyRgS9Bn-Z-tQTL_T8lCR4zO8e_Ev8CPVmjJZOqJZsMhgGx_W1qGw6fYoYxELYqS7AKhP4g1DGIBpZLfAop6R6IZdtMJhwObZfTftH6Z8EVUGZrGkgDOx1Q0PxmEJw/s400/Utopias+-+3+cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7359619-utopias-3" target="_blank">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7359619-utopias-3</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">" Sometimes we find ourselves in the presence of a form that guides and encloses our earliest dreams. For a painter a tree is composed in its roundness. But a poet continues that dream from higher up. He knows that when a thing becomes isolated, it becomes round, assumes a figure of being that is concentrated upon itself. In Rilke's Poèmes francais, this is how the walnut tree lives and commands attention. Here, again around a lone tree, which is the centre of a world, the dome of the sky becomes round, in accordance with the rule of cosmic poetry."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"> Gaston Bachelard - the Phenomenology of Roundness - </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"> the Poetics of Space ( 1958)</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7359619-utopias-3" target="_blank">Utopias 3 on blurb website</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Utopias – 3 The Music of the Spheres.</span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"> Algorithms that
forecast weather or predict climate change can <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbkfr2czVdXzvRZNygV4M8OfPjPIqv8s9O3eIOmp7xOMr4oHR5KS7iYg1NiarsoVkgjgdPVhj59Jwx3myr1HF01vp_Ve7jdroE8MDWAg-wMqlY7kbN5ttmGp3o7i1dfGUOJwgQ283D0A/s1600/GreatAccelerationExport0-01-49-15+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbkfr2czVdXzvRZNygV4M8OfPjPIqv8s9O3eIOmp7xOMr4oHR5KS7iYg1NiarsoVkgjgdPVhj59Jwx3myr1HF01vp_Ve7jdroE8MDWAg-wMqlY7kbN5ttmGp3o7i1dfGUOJwgQ283D0A/s200/GreatAccelerationExport0-01-49-15+small.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998" target="_blank">welcome to the Anthropocene</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
be represented through the
medium of computer generated images. These data visualisations are the modern
equivalent of cave paintings of the Palaeolithic era that suggest early
attempts to create an account of nature. The emergent idea of nature as a
concealed power echoing everyday life, seems to have found a literal expression
in those caves. Iegor Reznikoff found that the positions of paintings or symbolic
dots coincide with the locations in caves that have specific reverberant
qualities. <b>(1)</b> Singing and the first music possibly took place in these
natural echo chambers. Echoes out of the dark produce an sense of an uncanny
evoked response from an invisible world. These underground sites mark the start
of the human species' fascination with nature that would eventually be explored
through scientific and artistic enquiry. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In the 6th
century B.C. Pythagoras is said to have been intrigued by the different pitches
of sound make by blacksmiths' hammers. As the story goes, Pythagoras noticed
that specific weights of hammers, and later, distinct lengths of strings,
produced the musical notes that were already known. He discovered the octave,
and understood that it was the result of physical differences that can be
measured. The idea of number, proportion and scale became a new paradigm in an
early form of natural philosophy known as the music of the spheres. Astrology,
alchemy and mathematics were recruited to explain nature in an imaginative
scheme of correspondences. Followers of the music of the spheres believed that
the metal lead, bears, the herb hellebore and the planet Saturn shared the same
attributes because lead is heavy, bears are slow moving, hellebore promotes
sleep and Saturn (relative to stars) moves slowly across the sky. </span><b>(2) </b></span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"> Philosophers imagined the Sun, Moon, stars and planets rotated at
different speeds on a system of crystal spheres. This vast machine would have
generated characteristics in humans, animals, plants and minerals on Earth via
inaudible celestial music emanating from the spheres. The 'sub lunar world'
(our world) was a zone of change and flux, whereas the celestial spheres were
thought to be an unchanging region of perfection. Until the end of the
Renaissance the music of the spheres explained how specific forms, living and
mineral, arose from the generality of existence.<span> </span>Before the separation of science and art, the
music of the spheres was a kind of cosmology which described how form and
function emerged from the nexus of creation guided by the organising power of
music</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Persian paradise
gardens were already designed as a rectangular border </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgJYQViwO4O26ecr0yJ8d9s4cfXfGyDrhd8R5yc90me5HSfQQY4j3Sdf4j8z4DDkJQnU2ZumpBkzvNh7fMwvLPQkjA6j7Wq-oXlFvqnkV38Rbc3OvnuPTQLorASNOtIBGIWIzSKmasg/s1600/PersianGarden+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgJYQViwO4O26ecr0yJ8d9s4cfXfGyDrhd8R5yc90me5HSfQQY4j3Sdf4j8z4DDkJQnU2ZumpBkzvNh7fMwvLPQkjA6j7Wq-oXlFvqnkV38Rbc3OvnuPTQLorASNOtIBGIWIzSKmasg/s200/PersianGarden+copy.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">enclosing a watered and
cultivated area protected from the arid exterior. They often contained
fountains and water features that symbolised the mythical four rivers of
creation - the equivalent of our modern belief in the four fundamental forces
of nature; gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak
nuclear force. A fascination with the mystical significance of numbers is
widespread throughout history: the four humours of the human body, the five
mythical elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Aether), the seven classical
planets (the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), seven
metals and (for Ptolemy) seven 'states of mind'. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"> Plato believed
that beauty was an expression of a hidden world of perfection composed of
invisible geometrical shapes such as the pyramid, the cube and the sphere. The
irregularity of real objects, plants and bodies resulted from their distance
from perfection. Just as astrologers said that the stars tell us how to lead
better lives, Plato said that visible beauty was inseparable from moral beauty.
What we would today call 'psychological well-being' was for Plato a question of
living a life in accordance with the celestial harmony - a synchronisation of
the human soul with the harmony of the spheres. The music of the spheres was a
philosophy for regulating all human affairs, not just an explanation of nature.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> In A.D. 1595
astronomers such as Johannas Kepler were still trying to incorporate the music
of the spheres into the emerging discipline of science. He was excited to find
that the ratios of the distances between the orbits of the then known planets
could be explained by visualising platonic solids situated in the spaces
between them. For the five known planets there were five Platonic solids; the
tetrahedron, the cube, the </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHDQ_et5Q-uLdI95yNU6-cy1grerdDdDMfVs8Dpk-NVfavNvS13_vkyOsxUEc7R0U4iAuNiz90QBQ5SRzDr-lVa_K9wXz7Oa_ZZg6uaxopb_XHoCrxsO3SgVh_puZ8nlE8i-Q_cq0nQ/s1600/Kepler-solar-system-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHDQ_et5Q-uLdI95yNU6-cy1grerdDdDMfVs8Dpk-NVfavNvS13_vkyOsxUEc7R0U4iAuNiz90QBQ5SRzDr-lVa_K9wXz7Oa_ZZg6uaxopb_XHoCrxsO3SgVh_puZ8nlE8i-Q_cq0nQ/s200/Kepler-solar-system-1.png" width="181" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">octahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron.
Placed in a three-dimensional model of the solar system the points of these
shapes would touch the orbits of each planet. For a while this concept appeared
to verify the existence of the music of the spheres, but more planets were
discovered along with comets with highly elliptical orbits. Comets would have
smashed through the crystal spheres had they existed. </span><b>(2) </b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> The idea that
celestial spheres controlled nature<span> </span>was
eclipsed by the belief that the essence of matter and life was from within, and
potentially under the control of human intelligence. By the 17th century
references to Platonic shapes were limited to art, and a style within formal
gardens such as those at Vaux-le-Vicompte, </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">Versailles</span><span style="color: black;"> and </span><span style="color: black;">Chantilly</span><span style="color: black;">. The elaborately
geometrical gardens, with cones and spheres represented by topiary, were part
of the language of power. The grid pattern of latitude and longitude that
mapped </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"> the world also
enabled the exploitation of its resources and the colonisation of </span><span style="color: black;">Africa</span><span style="color: black;"> and </span><span style="color: black;">America</span><span style="color: black;"> by European nations.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> As cartography and science advanced
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries it became easier to accommodate
irregularity of form within observational frames of reference. The true shapes
of continents were </span></span><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNNl8f0rf7GGWtaNB8dNDNC9xuaja4UkDU-k8aRsS5fTZcuAaiYnN0kD-Gu2hszLTMxTOpgE8XvLRhaBpV9gqeL_crgonX3dO7bQnoYaArkgW3_mdy4NWtaxITxc86rL4FAzu1m-oXA/s1600/World+map+after1581.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNNl8f0rf7GGWtaNB8dNDNC9xuaja4UkDU-k8aRsS5fTZcuAaiYnN0kD-Gu2hszLTMxTOpgE8XvLRhaBpV9gqeL_crgonX3dO7bQnoYaArkgW3_mdy4NWtaxITxc86rL4FAzu1m-oXA/s200/World+map+after1581.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;">recognised after they had initially been imagined to be geometric.
John Constable owned a copy of </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Researches about Atmospheric Phaenomena</i></span><span style="font-size: large;">
by Thomas Forster. Published in 1815, the book demonstrated that clouds could
be classified by shape and type.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">The
morphology of plants and animals was analysed with algebra in 1912.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(3) </b></span><span style="font-size: large;">The
periodic table characterised the elements and threw light on the compounds they
form. (Gold has 79 electrons and mercury has 80 electrons). Elaborate schemes
of analogies were not required to explain nature after science established that
structure and form comes from below and not from the stars.</span></span><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">In 1925 </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCk6blUshCF8lewAX4FRk1U9wAuAfFPHv1sSug9xhReQ8ueeCNzFkcyDetG7hYk0pFiIDTPm6FN2herH3gRjHgJkLZzDQo43nqUM8dFHRoJ-vRMf2biNQkvrYqtjU_BBKQ7bcEsXJyA/s1600/Atom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCk6blUshCF8lewAX4FRk1U9wAuAfFPHv1sSug9xhReQ8ueeCNzFkcyDetG7hYk0pFiIDTPm6FN2herH3gRjHgJkLZzDQo43nqUM8dFHRoJ-vRMf2biNQkvrYqtjU_BBKQ7bcEsXJyA/s200/Atom.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wolfgang Pauli showed that complexity in matter arises from simple
rules. The music of the spheres turns out to be ‘shells’ of electrons that
orbit the nucleus of the atom. </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"> The discoveries of craters on the
Moon in 1609 and sunspots in 1610 had already suggested that nature is not
perfect. 19th century theories of entropy and evolution showed that physical
processes are contingent on the flow of energy (which will cease when it is
evenly distributed) and that natural selection creates species that are only
just good enough for the environment in which they survive. Improvements to
form and physiology are preserved <i>ad hoc </i>by </span><span style="color: black;">DNA</span><span style="color: black;">. In recent
history the concept of perfection has been replaced by relativism and the
belief that systems (mechanical, living and styles of art) can only be
optimally organised for their particular time and place. Even the Gaia theory
is not concerned by the potential destruction of 'perfect' earth systems. It
claims that we are at risk if we pollute the Earth, not because we have defied
a perfect 'world soul' (as Plato might have said) but because the
self-regulating meta-ecosystem is not structured for us, but merely in a way
that includes us. Further overexploitation could cause it change to a new state
in which life continues but without our species, like a horse unseating its
rider, or shaking off a fly.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span>(1)<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-synthesis: weight style; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><span>Sound
resonance in prehistoric times: A study of Paleolithic painted caves and
rocks.Reznikof, I : Journal of the Acoustical society of </span><span>America</span><span> <b>123</b>,3603 (2008)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span>(2)<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-synthesis: weight style; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><b><span style="color: black;"><span> </span></span></b><span style="color: black;">James, J. <i>T<span>he Music of the Spheres; Music, Science and
the Natural Order of the Universe</span></i>: 1993: </span><span style="color: black;">London</span><span style="color: black;">: Abacus.</span><span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span>(3)<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-synthesis: weight style; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><span>Thompson,
D’Arcy Wentworth. <i>On Growth and Form:</i> 1912: </span><span>Cambridge</span><span>: </span><span>Cambridge</span><span> </span><span>Univ.</span><span> Press.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Music of the Spheres BBC Radio 4 In Our Time</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c1fct" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c1fct</a></span></span></span></div>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-27944786705577159792015-12-13T22:13:00.000+00:002015-12-13T22:22:25.170+00:00Utopias - 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtWFr98CLNs_E2liqJRYvpcOGnB-TkPWfdYvU4gapiILOEZ_5ihSHZKJkr9Pts2CVz1Mm99sHOSYVz77xW4E9UPtfmELo0Lgf7yN6F5MiJuyGWrQejL3SdeXHAe8TzkSwXE3-2lCI0A/s1600/Utopias+-+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtWFr98CLNs_E2liqJRYvpcOGnB-TkPWfdYvU4gapiILOEZ_5ihSHZKJkr9Pts2CVz1Mm99sHOSYVz77xW4E9UPtfmELo0Lgf7yN6F5MiJuyGWrQejL3SdeXHAe8TzkSwXE3-2lCI0A/s400/Utopias+-+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even the most cogent definition of nature fails to dispel a sense
of ambiguity about our position in relation to naturalness. Alexander von
Humboldt established a geographical and scientific view of nature that could be
more or less contained within literature and the genre of landscape painting.
The revolution in our understanding of nature resulting from 20th century
nuclear physics and recent advances in synthetic biology makes it harder to
continue a shared definition of nature. The realisation that nature obeys
physical laws that are amoral undermines what was once a common reference point
in culture. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
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<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6669424-utopias-2" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6669424-utopias-2</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Because technology uses the forces of nature for industrial
production, which is both useful and destabilising, it creates a tension
between a popular view of nature and its scientific description. The developing
ability to intervene in the functioning of biology at the level of genetics,
either to save us from disease, create new products, or even reorganise the
biosphere, raises the question of how much of the natural world should remain
unaffected by humans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Researchers have suggested that the images are not randomly
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCh6h75frbcy8HJlmEpkJnL_v2lX2LCYKj88HCt3LQZ44jGWMx36sHGdMhb3WYd0pr_IfnhgPOhtHYJKSEkGFnxu4xLPP16y0UGqN6EArzxhyphenhypheneGf53qt9-wLuPu_3xGFK2iohsAyB2g/s1600/AltamiraBison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCh6h75frbcy8HJlmEpkJnL_v2lX2LCYKj88HCt3LQZ44jGWMx36sHGdMhb3WYd0pr_IfnhgPOhtHYJKSEkGFnxu4xLPP16y0UGqN6EArzxhyphenhypheneGf53qt9-wLuPu_3xGFK2iohsAyB2g/s320/AltamiraBison.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(1) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_in_the_Cave" target="_blank">The Mind in the Cave</a> </td></tr>
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distributed but are arranged into groups of types of animals which must have
been significant at that time <b>(1).</b>These cave pictures could have been a
kind of 'periodic table' of animals that attempted to make sense of the
patterns of nature. While the images of some animals have enough blank space
around them to resemble a </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;">landscape picture, other depictions are closely
associated with variations in the rock surface. The producers of these images
were involved with the physicality of the underground spaces that they chose.
These pictures are an early record of a conception of nature as something that
has to be </span><span style="font-size: large;">negotiated. They suggest that the fundamental laws of nature affect everything but seem to come from a profound ‘elsewhere’ that requires a special effort to reach.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For a culture that did not have our modern distinctions between
religion, art, science and technology, it seems inappropriate to describe the
pictures as ‘art’. Our understanding of art is based on leisure and the
opportunity for reverie after work. In the Palaeolithic era, cave paintings may
have been regarded as an intervention in the invisible forces behind nature
much as we expect technology, such as gene editing <b>(2)</b>,<b> </b>to have a
positive outcome. Rather than religious offerings or artistic celebrations were
they a putative means of control?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The technology of cultivation, agriculture, created civilisation.
The annual flooding of the river </span><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Nile</span></st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
and its management provided the soil fertility that made ancient </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Egypt</span></st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> into a culture. Even today it is possible
to stand with one foot on crops supported by irrigation and the other foot in
the desert. In the time of the pharaoh Akhenaten an anonymous writer left an
early example of thoughts about how the process of life is supported by light
and water. Akhenaten was a religious revolutionary who decreed that a pantheon
of gods should be replaced by the worship of a single deity- the sun god Aten.
The ‘Poem in Praise of the Sun’ was written during the reign of Akhenaten:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">.<b>.."When you set in the western
horizon of the sky<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>The Earth is in darkness like
the dead.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>People sleep in their rooms
with covered heads:<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>They do not see each other.</b></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>If all their possessions were
stolen</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>They would know it not.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Every lion leaves its lair;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>All snakes bite;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Darkness covers all.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>The world is silent<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>For the creator rests in his
horizon.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>When you arise from the
horizon the earth grows bright;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>You shine as the Aten in the
sky and drive away the darkness;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">When your rays gleam forth,
the whole of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Egypt</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> is festive.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>People wake up and stand on
their feet<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>For you have lifted them up.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>They wash their limbs and
take up their clothes and dress;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>They raise their arms to you
in adoration.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Then the whole of the land
does its work;</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">All cattle enjoy their
pastures,<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRi_j8ItX0bI57Sa-Iu2yDqA_a_RLG42vkalBquaLC_3n4YvwXGxEjJIfIl6tyRukcCQoS0VkGuu8lSBFismScKLxvVjsDtI7-Z-_mG4kVRwLWPvOZNloIjYOxHqZaV7L7ydUNCNQtHg/s1600/Akhenaton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRi_j8ItX0bI57Sa-Iu2yDqA_a_RLG42vkalBquaLC_3n4YvwXGxEjJIfIl6tyRukcCQoS0VkGuu8lSBFismScKLxvVjsDtI7-Z-_mG4kVRwLWPvOZNloIjYOxHqZaV7L7ydUNCNQtHg/s320/Akhenaton.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: start;">Akhenaten and </span>Nefertiti withtheir children under the<br /> sun god Aten. In this picture the rays of the sun <br />terminate</span><span style="font-size: small;"> in an</span> <span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh" target="_blank">ankh</a> <span style="font-family: inherit;">symbol</span></span><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Akhenaten%2C_Nefertiti_and_their_children.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Ägyptisches Museum Berlin</span></a></span></td></tr>
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</span><o:p></o:p></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Trees and plants grow green,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Birds fly up from their nests<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>And raise their wings in
praise of their spirit.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Goats frisk on their feet,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>And all fluttering and flying
things come alive.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Because you shine on them.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Boats sail up and downstream,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>All ways are opened because
you have appeared.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>The fish in the river leap up
to you<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>Your rays are in the deep of
the sea."....</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The poem suggests an intuitive understanding of what we now call
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which describes how the flow of energy from
our sun can be captured by plants, allowing them to make food and how solar
energy powers the water cycle that fills rivers - carving the land as they
return the water to the sea. The phrase "Your rays are in the deep of the
sea" implies an all-pervading force that brings about order and structure.
The sense of process in the poem is combined with a feeling for beauty that is associated
with purposeful function.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This desire to see values represented in nature is a theme that
became established in both literature and visual art. Whether beauty is within
objects or is subjectively in our minds is related to the question of whether
we are inside or outside of nature. The paradise gardens that originated in the
semi-arid areas such as </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Egypt</span></st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> were irrigated spaces offering protection
to plants that were valued for their beauty. All subsequent gardens follow this
separation of the cultivated from the wild, even those walled gardens and
greenhouses that provide shelter from the cold.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Oracle at </span><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Delphi</span></st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is evidence of a continued belief in an underground 'other' that was responsible for nature and the course of events within it. In<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">ancient </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Greece</span></st1:place></st1:country-region></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;">theatres were sited where landscapes
literally provided a background to the narratives acted out there. In the
Hellenistic period the stage was augmented by the 'stage screen' <b>(3) </b>incorporating
painted backgrounds which subsequently evolved into landscape paintings in
Roman homes. From the Renaissance the composition of nature in painting
paralleled the increased complexity of garden design. In the17th century French
formal, geometrically arranged gardens, were separated from the productive farmland
and express an anxious desire to impose rational order on nature. The English
'parkland' style of 18th century landscape garden, based on pastoral ideals,
displayed a sanguine confidence in the rightful ownership of nature. The
synthetically 'natural' parkland was often separated from the formal gardens
and the kitchen gardens by a hidden wall and ditch arrangement called a 'Ha Ha'
- invisibly merging nature and design into one aesthetic.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDeLXkeGcz4u5TyMhttSyTHi29e5syW-MDto56DxPzerXy78GtHRWZSGcsNCNUfFsqhVKVCapXG8nlObQ-__62OAEhz4hi_F42K7rgQMvKq8JbzLp82lFlPS4cUIbKTHsudfsaYAEvA/s1600/Crystal_Palace_interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDeLXkeGcz4u5TyMhttSyTHi29e5syW-MDto56DxPzerXy78GtHRWZSGcsNCNUfFsqhVKVCapXG8nlObQ-__62OAEhz4hi_F42K7rgQMvKq8JbzLp82lFlPS4cUIbKTHsudfsaYAEvA/s320/Crystal_Palace_interior.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c19x" target="_blank">The Great Exhibition 1851</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Throughout its
history landscape art depicted wilderness, cultivation and habitation,
expressed in the styles of the picturesque and the sublime and from the 1851 <i>Crystal
Palace</i> <i>Exhibition </i>to the curtain-wall buildings of modernism,
technology enabled architects to reduce the separation between inside and
outside. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4d-lNftu99LO_ekdxqsqzOIzaUUpy5RkJVmeRciSYwcFNgVWg9Vmznkwou09FEoEXC-qooDyHoeGHnB58JRIDUD5O-8AfmYmZOXbJ5ziUpMytPg7d4aVPF0d_vEQBXmFDJLAA0pm18A/s1600/Fallingwater+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4d-lNftu99LO_ekdxqsqzOIzaUUpy5RkJVmeRciSYwcFNgVWg9Vmznkwou09FEoEXC-qooDyHoeGHnB58JRIDUD5O-8AfmYmZOXbJ5ziUpMytPg7d4aVPF0d_vEQBXmFDJLAA0pm18A/s320/Fallingwater+small.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
<i><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_architecture" target="_blank">Falling Water </a></b></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house (1935), built as a summer residence for the wealthy Kaufmann family in Pennsylvania USA, is essentially a nature-viewing station with 'cinemascope' picture windows, a stream flowing under the house and native rock incorporated into it's structure. This playful use of nature and artifice has remained a unique design. In the 21st century nature is presented to the consumer via tourism and TV screens the size of paintings. The unintended alteration of the biosphere by humans means that we are still in nature and the consequences may be so complex as to be only visualised by computer models acting as Anthropocene oracles.<b>(4)</b> The algorithms behind their predictions may appear as abstruse as nature did to Palaeolithic cave painters.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBlZwh9skjqRrJYtzIy1fipa2-EYlWnuigJTWtMvdk6DdbB6VVhXkejhITta6qW3MNfMn1Xe2MaYmIxbCJtR2B6uPTKk2db5lFZIrcR8ngX-uZerwx8x_X6BQgaY3HQh-2x7eHwg73Q/s1600/News+March+2001+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBlZwh9skjqRrJYtzIy1fipa2-EYlWnuigJTWtMvdk6DdbB6VVhXkejhITta6qW3MNfMn1Xe2MaYmIxbCJtR2B6uPTKk2db5lFZIrcR8ngX-uZerwx8x_X6BQgaY3HQh-2x7eHwg73Q/s640/News+March+2001+small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <b> Two newspapers from Saturday 17th March 2001.</b></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>The Independent</i></b> shows the opening of the</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="https://www.edenproject.com/eden-story" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Eden Project</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">visitor attraction in Cornwall, U.K.. Building on the success of botanical glasshouses from the Victorian era, the plastic bio domes of the Eden Project occupy the site of a former clay pit that was devoid of life but now houses a collection of plants from around the world. In the style of </span> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Biosphere 2</span></a> <span style="font-size: large;">the different domes are able to replicate different climatic regions of the world. The educational purpose of the project is to explain the interdependence of plants and people to the wider public. The redemption of the former industrial site by the creation of the project suggests a sense of moral purpose that is reminiscent of the 15th Century botanic gardens in Europe which were created partly as a response to the realisation that global explores had failed to locate the biblical Garden of Eden.<b> </b>As<b> </b>the mariners of that age of exploration filled in the blanks of the world map, the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise was re-interpreted by some scholars as being the scattering of creation by divine will. </span></span><b style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">(5) </b><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The concept of piecing together the dispersed fragments of paradise as a duty mirrors the modern post-industrial idea the true workings of the biosphere need to be rescued from the destructive </span><span style="font-size: large;">influence</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> of the machine age.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The story in <i><b>The Guardian</b></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> refers to a concurrent outbreak of foot and mouth disease that was </span>eventually<span style="font-family: inherit;"> controlled by </span></span></span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">the slaughter of affected livestock </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">and</span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the imposition of restrictions on the transportation of farm animals as well as the limitation of public access to the countryside. Although a naturally occurring disease, the story reflected a sense of crisis which was exacerbated by the impression that agriculture had departured from a traditional relationship with nature, especially as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was still prominent in the media.</span></span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Paradoxically, it later emerged that the greatest economic loss to the rural economy during the crisis was caused by the temporary cessation of tourism. </span></span><b style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">(6)</b><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> The desire to spend leisure time in a rural landscape, the image of which is largely defined by landscape art, is partially supported (in the U.K.) by the allocation of some Common Agricultural Policy(CAP) funds to maintain farms in a traditional form. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">The special subsidies for hill farming may actually be contributing to flooding by preventing those areas from returning to natural vegetation cover, as would happen if market forces were allowed to operate.</span><b style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">(7)</b><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> The prevention of the return of tree and bush cover by subsidised grazing accelerates the flow of water from high rainfall events, but helps the landscape to conform to an aesthetic created by landscape art and derived images in popular media.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(1)</b> Lewis-Williams, David. <i><b>The Mind in the Cave</b> </i>: Thames & Hudson : 2002: Page 61</span><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>(<span style="font-size: large;">2)</span></b><span style="font-size: large;"> New Scientist <st1:date day="14" month="11" year="2015">14<sup>th</sup> November 2015</st1:date> - <b><i>Gene editing beat a baby’s leukaemia.</i></b> Are other cancers next? Vol 228 No 3047<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">(3)</span></b> <span style="font-size: large;">Crandwll, Gina. <b><i>Nature Pictorialized</i></b><i> </i>: <st1:city><st1:place>Baltimore</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city>: The John Hopkins University Press. Page 36</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>(4)</b> <a href="https://vimeo.com/39048998" target="_blank">Anthropocene.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(5) </b>Prest, John.<b> <i>The Garden of Eden: The Botanic Garden and the Re-Creation of Paradise</i>. </b>Yale University Press. 1981 Page 9</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(6) <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100807034701/http:/archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/fmd/fmd_report/report/index.htm" target="_blank">Foot and Mouth Report</a></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(7) <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/may/22/britain-uplands-farming-subsidies" target="_blank">the guardian.britain uplands farming subsidies</a></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6669424-utopias-2" target="_blank">Utopias-2</a></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">UTOPIAS -1</span></a></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Anthropocene Desiderata</span></a><br />
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<br />John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-7564623148166740562015-09-18T22:42:00.001+01:002021-05-24T15:02:06.032+01:00Utopias - 1<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7BuXSgLJ0pnxzK3MKftVRZutsatup6RBDJ_UnOKFWTOkaW6HMj1POgKrG_wKa-zQDuK53eZqwYiPxdKkJsZpl66YOZKQ5m0SOW-ypd2NDdzqZpsI7SJph_sx2WbVM72PRBsErtVHeA/s1600/Untitled-89+small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7BuXSgLJ0pnxzK3MKftVRZutsatup6RBDJ_UnOKFWTOkaW6HMj1POgKrG_wKa-zQDuK53eZqwYiPxdKkJsZpl66YOZKQ5m0SOW-ypd2NDdzqZpsI7SJph_sx2WbVM72PRBsErtVHeA/w400-h281/Untitled-89+small.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">If Land Art marks an end to the history of landscape art, it
seems fitting that many of the constructions that characterise that 'ultimate'
form are in desert locations (the antithesis of pastoralism) such as </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Arizona</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 14pt;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere" target="_blank">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere</a></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> As well as being the American state in
which, <i>Roden Crater</i>, Biosphere 2, the former NASA training site at
Cinder Lake and the setting for the stereoscopic anaglyph film <i>It Came from
Outer Space </i>(1953) can be found, Arizona is also home to the Lowell
Observatory in Flagstaff. After establishing the observatory in 1894, Percival
Lowell wrote two books, <i>Mars</i> (1895) and <i>Mars and its Canals</i>
(1906) which had an effect on popular culture and science.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The thesis of
both books was predicated on the idea that a system of irrigation canals exists
on Mars, and that they were build by a civilisation of intelligent beings to
save their world from encroaching desertification. This idea is now known to be
untrue, and based entirely on the mis-seeing of unrelated marks on the surface
of the planet as </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgi9QGzcHv9wBHjV0fI9Bhu_RhXx1GcTW1GstwZ7Nr01KPiSQ-e09R2F8UCmwm-zQMCyWZos665a11XK9yGcUoOVl3lB7xInCYuOs3dKyUBYN2scGex5GKiVq7FuxM3_pVZGHhhRzlMg/s1600/Mars+Dunes+adj.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgi9QGzcHv9wBHjV0fI9Bhu_RhXx1GcTW1GstwZ7Nr01KPiSQ-e09R2F8UCmwm-zQMCyWZos665a11XK9yGcUoOVl3lB7xInCYuOs3dKyUBYN2scGex5GKiVq7FuxM3_pVZGHhhRzlMg/s200/Mars+Dunes+adj.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">connected lines. </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;">'s books fired the imagination of
H.G.Wells <b>(1)</b> and many others. The idea became so popular that the shift
to the realisation that Mars is more similar to our Moon than the Earth was so
gradual that even as the Mariner 4 spacecraft cruised towards the planet in
1965 it was predicted that areas of vegetation would be photographed. <b>(2)</b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Born in 1855, </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;">’s generation grew up with the expectation
that the power of engineering would only ever increase. The possibility of planet-wide
engineering occurred to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> as the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Panama</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> and </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Suez</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> canals were impressing the world with
their ambition and scale. The futurist painters identified their revolutionary
zeal with the power of technology as the application of science in the technologies
of building, energy, transport and communication became central to
international culture. 20th century science fiction, radio, film and
architecture celebrated technology. These forms and media owe their essence to
the application of science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55A356PwTwwoMAA8D6raThVzcwKqgew91ug-F7ULg9sto2vDZaBCN8ETeBsyKEGcxRBi7l32K83xhCtDgW-ry2Jm9aP2Msa9h49twdmu33Fi81fLfwCI3G8jjf6ZrywHqcAI8i6lWYg/s1600/0732_001.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55A356PwTwwoMAA8D6raThVzcwKqgew91ug-F7ULg9sto2vDZaBCN8ETeBsyKEGcxRBi7l32K83xhCtDgW-ry2Jm9aP2Msa9h49twdmu33Fi81fLfwCI3G8jjf6ZrywHqcAI8i6lWYg/s200/0732_001.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Commerative plaques depicting the industries used in the
construction of the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Empire</span></st1:placename><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-size: 14pt;">State</span></st1:placetype><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Building</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> (electricity, heating etc) are placed in
the entrance lobby of that iconic building. Whereas 18th century industries
relied on water power at sites around fall lines and processed agricultural
products restricted to climatic areas, the zeitgeist of the 20th century was
created by networks of transport, transmission and remotely generated power.
The </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Empire</span></st1:placename><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-size: 14pt;">State</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> building lobby plaques look as if they
could easily belong to a Soviet building of the same era in the U.S.S.R.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Percival Lowell imagined that Mars was experiencing a process of
environmental decline that was natural, but today’s speculation about
geoengineering is a response to anthropogenic climate change. Means of
reflecting sunlight back into space, such as aerosol particles created and
pumped into the upper atmosphere <b>(3)</b> or space mirrors in orbit, are
unlikely to be attempted. The more straightforward concepts of sequestering
carbon dioxide (CO</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">) underground after capturing it from electricity-generating
power station flue gasses or even extracting CO</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> from the atmosphere seem less
extreme by comparison. Energy sources free from CO</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> emissions are the renewable
ones; wind, tide, geothermal and solar or the ‘atomic’ options of nuclear
fission and the as yet unachieved thermonuclear power. Even if global warming
is reduced or even averted the transformation of the Earth by civil
engineering, agriculture, fishing and mineral extraction will diminish wilderness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The most unpredictable technology for the future is synthetic
biology. Whereas the laser and nuclear energy were predicted mathematically,
the possibilities and consequences of engineering life are presently
incalculable within the context of the biosphere as a whole. Industrialisation
may have invented the idea of the future being different from the past, but
science predicts future uncertainties. Genetically engineered crops are already
in use and a micro-organism has been changed to produce diesel oil,
short-circuiting the fossilisation process by millions of years. The
possibilities of </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNU4GXtfHN4oqYAs59-oaQ3BVdTQDzwwfOJz3dlf6-yFTIQYM0JzoVY7z-ElcNEEk9lQe0USEse4Nw91irVgOr9hN_vyjVrenQVgK5DoCRp3e2qn79KOlp25l8mRKu54A12u1PgLsmA/s1600/Radford+Blvd+Last+Night+BWcrop.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNU4GXtfHN4oqYAs59-oaQ3BVdTQDzwwfOJz3dlf6-yFTIQYM0JzoVY7z-ElcNEEk9lQe0USEse4Nw91irVgOr9hN_vyjVrenQVgK5DoCRp3e2qn79KOlp25l8mRKu54A12u1PgLsmA/s320/Radford+Blvd+Last+Night+BWcrop.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">synthetic biology are tremendous. As well as increasing the
production of food it might be possible to increase the efficiency of the
photosynthetic process by up to 25%. If altered genes that enabled this effect were
to be introduced to uncultivated plants this might remove much of the CO</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>2</b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
emissions added to the atmosphere. The idea of reconstructing ecosystems
damaged by climate change, through planting of species pre-adapted to altered
conditions, could be extended with synthetic biology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Human influence
already affects the evolution of species without our intention. It is no longer
just a question of accidentally reducing biodiversity. The species that survive
in the Anthropocene will be genetically changed by the environment that we have
created. In the age of the 'technological sublime' we already behave as if our
industrial and agricultural processes are a given factor as inevitable as
nature. The idea of bio-engineering our way out of problems we have created is
controversial but conceivable. However, Laurens van der Post once suggested
that the continued existence of wilderness is necessary for the psychological
well-being of humanity. If the Anthropocene removes the psychological expansion
chamber into which we once escaped the pressure of our techno-civilisation, art
will have to work harder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If Land Art was the final chapter in the story of landscape art,
then the ability of contemporary art to reflect important aspects of our future
relationship to nature comes into question. The flow of landscape art through
history appears to have ended in an aesthetic delta of stylistic distributaries
in the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Firstly, realistic views of landscapes fell out of favour with
intellectuals but retained the loyalty of both fascist and communist ideologies
for which landscape art was an arena for heroic figures representing the
'manifest destiny' of a nation. Secondly, some artists tried to include
Surrealism in landscape pictures, not always convincingly. Thirdly, democracies in the 1930s were attracted towards the styles of folk, naïve or 'primative' art. Fourthly,
photography offered the possibility of elegiac images of nature based on an
aesthetic of the clarity of 'mechanical seeing' versus the subjective vision of
impressionism and abstraction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0y0mqYkJw1jSWnuPRAfwicsjfVi00shXULqudUgHPEAdRPnWejEmoxXqZHDRPaMfRtAleuakzFvJucSm_IQ1VNyo8VEIJcEPag617mQ9lEBvcng4a0q-4HU4wn1cLuJDpL0feJZ6mg/s1600/Jodrell.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0y0mqYkJw1jSWnuPRAfwicsjfVi00shXULqudUgHPEAdRPnWejEmoxXqZHDRPaMfRtAleuakzFvJucSm_IQ1VNyo8VEIJcEPag617mQ9lEBvcng4a0q-4HU4wn1cLuJDpL0feJZ6mg/s200/Jodrell.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Percival Lowell’s books were published when the subjugation of
nature and the 'technological sublime' were first imagined by science fiction.
Art has only recently explored the Anthropocene, synthetic biology<b> (4)</b>
and what Gaston Bachelard called (in a different context) ‘intimate immensity’-
an idea redolent of the present situation. New art that admits knowledge of
nature from science, without merely illustrating it, should evolve. It might
feel like Percival Lowell’s description of working at </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Flagstaff</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;">: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“To sally forth into the untrod</span> wilderness in<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the cold a</span>nd dark of
a winter’s small hours of the morning, with the snow feet deep upon the ground
and the frosty stars for mute companionship, is almost to forget one’s self a
man for the solemn awe of one’s surroundings. Fitting portal to communion with
another world, it is through such avenue that one enters on his quest where the
common and the familiar no longer jostle the unknown and the strange. Nor is
the stillness of the stars invaded when some long unearthly howl, like the wail
of a lost soul, breaks the slumber of the mesa forest, marking the prowling
prescience of a stray coyote. Gone as it came, it dies in the distance on the
air that gave it birth; the gloom of the pines swallows up one’s vain peering
after something palpable, their tops alone decipherable in dark silhouette
against the sky. From amid surroundings that for their height and their
intenancy fringe the absolute silence of space the observer must set forth who
purposes to cross it to another planetary world.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Percival Lowell – 1906.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In the
Anthropocene the Earth is like another world.
Whereas </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> projected his </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbcunE8-BiVif156PtIuTQls1Ah_YT_ZhxrWPDsRRBQ8QlZAZKFT66GStB7E_wamp_JPB32z3TEB8zKlgk8owQLayxgbYvHIHO4SBnDDHT72gVR7NlCs9SGNrrQ5myCENc2pLC56fhjA/s1600/Untitled-35+small.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbcunE8-BiVif156PtIuTQls1Ah_YT_ZhxrWPDsRRBQ8QlZAZKFT66GStB7E_wamp_JPB32z3TEB8zKlgk8owQLayxgbYvHIHO4SBnDDHT72gVR7NlCs9SGNrrQ5myCENc2pLC56fhjA/s200/Untitled-35+small.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">imagination beyond the limits of vision, the art of
the Anthropocene should help us imagine what science will reveal to our sight.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6474500-utopias-1-pictures-of-elsewhere</span></a><br />
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<b>
(1) Wells, H.G. : The War of the Worlds - William Heinemann. 1898
</b><br />
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<b>(2) New Scientist - No 419: 26th November 1964 Page 572</b><br />
<b> also </b><b>New Scientist - No 406: 27th August 1964 Page 489</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>(3) Philosophical Transactions A - 13th September 2012 Volume: 370 Issue: 1974</b><br />
<b><br />(4) Synthetic Aesthetics: investigating synthetic biology's designs on nature: </b><b>MIT press 2014</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> "If we could analyze
impressions and images of immensity, or what immensity contributes to an image,
we would soon enter into a region of the purest sort of phenomenology - a
phenomenology without phenomena; or, stated less paradoxically, one that, in order
to know the productive flow of images, need not wait for the phenomena of the
imagination to take form and become stabilized in complete images. In other
words, since immense is not an object, a phenomenology of immense would refer
us directly to our own imagining consciousness. In analyzing images of
immensity, we should realize within ourselves the pure being of pure
imagination. It then becomes clear that works of art are the <i>by-products</i>
of this existentialism of the imagining being. In this direction of daydreams
of immensity, the real <i>product </i>is consciousness of enlargement. We feel
that we have been promoted to the dignity of the admiring being."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Gaston Bachelard - <i>Intimate
Immensity - The Poetics of Space. </i>(1958)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata" target="_blank">Anthropocene Desiderata</a></span></div>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-82120326130998249632015-07-20T20:08:00.000+01:002015-09-13T17:38:00.578+01:00Anthropocene Desiderata<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4DAiUPutWiib_1B3jVVTu2QaysGTFgJsFx-Km8PTmkkWUHUns0cj7L74C-64tGNoybA200afcyQFUekswKQpU7V3olqHAcCNkxkNS3J7rxLZp3pbddFVmo84EzkVsLnPahMBVSymgQ/s1600/Anthropocene+Desiderata+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4DAiUPutWiib_1B3jVVTu2QaysGTFgJsFx-Km8PTmkkWUHUns0cj7L74C-64tGNoybA200afcyQFUekswKQpU7V3olqHAcCNkxkNS3J7rxLZp3pbddFVmo84EzkVsLnPahMBVSymgQ/s640/Anthropocene+Desiderata+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata" style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;" target="_blank">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata</a></td></tr>
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35 years after Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 the world population has doubled to 7 billion people. The combined effect of population growth and industrial processes on our planet is now so great that it has been proposed that our age should be regarded as a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene. Changes to the atmosphere and the effects of mining, manufacturing and agriculture are affecting Earth systems and increasing rates of extinction to levels that will be as visible in geological strata as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary that marks the end of the age of the dinosaurs. Even if the putative need for continual economic growth can be sustained by renewable energy sources and/or the long-awaited realisation of thermonuclear electricity generation, the journey to a world population of 16 billion by the end of this Century will cause us to question attempts to preserve even small areas of nature in an unaltered state. New forms of art are required to help us to think about what is natural, essential, desirable or beautiful.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata" target="_blank">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata</a><br />
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Landscape art used to be the genre through which nature was
contemplated, but it is now so unfashionable it no longer appears in the
index of most books about contemporary art. The painting of views of nature
emerged from the domination of history painting in the 16th Century to become
the most fashionable form of painting in the 19th Century. From being a
background setting for biblical scenes, nature became the subject of pictures.
A landscape picture is a kind of virtual garden combining elements such as
trees, rivers and hills into a pictorial whole. In everyday life relatively
peripheral elements such as these can be ‘bracketed’ by our consciousness so as
not to distract us from our constructed sensation of living in a plastic ‘now’.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our sense of the present is constantly modified by events flowing
with time. The attraction of pictures is that they offer a frozen ‘now’ in
which associations, emotions and memories can be experienced in relation to a
scene which is comprehensible but outside time. With contemplation and reverie
the viewer of a picture can vicariously experience a place in which the passage
of time is halted. Through the materiality of a landscape picture we can
imagine our life in relation to nature depicted as being almost a substance.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX_UbqKw_PO_BWiS3_eSTaN1gVd9R4a4DsUMh5TiJUBnW_2f2z4BmN9J38VDYa8zvNbh0c7kJGljSYu1mf0hIAZwvsduYOegKB2_wNaPfQrcXR2f6U0CDT3QkbeKdW4V3EE5cI-A60A/s1600/gmiii_mcag_1979_517_624x544.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX_UbqKw_PO_BWiS3_eSTaN1gVd9R4a4DsUMh5TiJUBnW_2f2z4BmN9J38VDYa8zvNbh0c7kJGljSYu1mf0hIAZwvsduYOegKB2_wNaPfQrcXR2f6U0CDT3QkbeKdW4V3EE5cI-A60A/s200/gmiii_mcag_1979_517_624x544.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<i>Wooded Landscape with Figures </i></div>
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<i>Walking</i><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> by a
Sandy Bank</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">by Jan Wijnants.</span><br />
Manchester City Art Galleries</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Idealised nature can be contained within a picture, as a paradise
garden or a <i>hortus conclusus</i> contained real plants. What we mean by the
word ‘nature’ has become something of a lost question. The word 'nature' was
originally derived from the Latin word <i>nasci</i> (to be born). This original
definition suggests that the natural world is filled with life that is tended
and cared for. The concept of the walled garden implies that nature is only
fully realised through the act of cultivation.The creation of art is like
cultivation. It was through 17th Century Dutch painting that landscape art
found an expression that was both popular and commercially viable for artists.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/wooded-landscape-with-figures-walking-by-a-sandy-bank-206397" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/wooded-landscape-</a><br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/wooded-landscape-with-figures-walking-by-a-sandy-bank-206397" target="_blank">with-figures-walking-by-a-sandy-bank-206397</a><br />
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Although the wealth of the Dutch merchants who bought landscape
paintings was derived from international trade, the culture of that country has
been shaped by the need to ‘reclaim’ their land from water. What would
otherwise be a nation of marshes became an agriculturally productive land due to a
concerted effort to exclude water. This opposition between cultivated nature
and ‘other’ is like opposition between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. The opposite of
cultivation is often though to be wilderness or even void. Language has
associated ‘nature’ with forms we believe to be beautiful or purposeful aspects
of the naturally occurring world. It could be argued that its definition has
evolved as much through landscape art as language.</div>
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Landscape art embraced fashions ranging from the beguiling
quaintness of the ‘picturesque’ to an appreciation of the menace and looming
magnitude essential to the ‘sublime’ but landscape art does not easily show the
invisible workings of nature. William Dyce’s painting <st1:place><st1:city><b><i>Pegwell Bay</i></b></st1:city><b><i>, </i></b><st1:country-region><b><i>Kent</i></b></st1:country-region></st1:place><b><i> – a Recollection of </i></b><st1:date day="5" month="10" year="1858"><b><i>October
5th 1858</i></b></st1:date><b><i> (</i></b><b>1858-1860)<i>
</i></b>was<b><i> </i></b>made
when the divergence of art and science was accelerating. The coastal scene
depicts a family group on the seashore, collecting shells and fossils while
Donati's Comet is visible in the sky. It was painted as Charles Darwin’s book
‘On the Origin of Species’ become famous. Dyce’s painting hints at the cultural
change that occurred when natural philosophy evolved into science, but can only
suggest a sense of unease caused by the emerging scientific view of nature and
the resulting controversies that continue to this day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dyce-pegwell-bay-kent-a-recollection-of-october-5th-1858-n01407" target="_blank">Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5th 1858</a></div>
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In the 20th Century, landscape pictures slowly disappeared from
modern art at the </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5AWJi9JL_YyM0IszgRBOxA3EwKszjz5F6114Q1JXzfNw4rnw7RTp4j6xehgJ4xmKJz0vLlx8H6VHVV2Ewlx3yoo-bYjuVVK6LMRE2x7E6_s6OH5xMAifLJ7-uYsNuLHMoaPkZkzpbSA/s1600/Camm+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5AWJi9JL_YyM0IszgRBOxA3EwKszjz5F6114Q1JXzfNw4rnw7RTp4j6xehgJ4xmKJz0vLlx8H6VHVV2Ewlx3yoo-bYjuVVK6LMRE2x7E6_s6OH5xMAifLJ7-uYsNuLHMoaPkZkzpbSA/s320/Camm+Blog.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CAMM. F.J.<i> Marvels of Modern Science.</i><br />
London: George Newnes Ltd.1935</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
same time as ‘wild’ nature became less evident in the actual
landscape. Mechanisation changed the landscape of agriculture by amalgamating
fields thereby reducing the number hedgerows and trees. Light pollution from
electric lamps erased stars from the night sky. Artists converged on cosmopolitan cities and the practice of art concentrated on formal aspects of
painting or the subjective experience of individuals. After a brief dalliance
between impressionism and the science of colour, the study of nature
disappeared into the laboratory as physicists investigated existence at the
level of the atom. </div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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Although landscape art remains popular, especially with those who
paint for recreation, the context in which nature is understood has changed.
Technology extended a comfortable insulation from nature, which was once the
preserve of the privileged and wealthy, to the wider population of consumers
who live in the ‘developed world’. While the rest of the world now expects to
attain the same levels of health and comfort, technology has produced
unexpected effects. Environmental damage is often invisible, such as: the
threat to birds from dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), the damage to the
ozone layer caused by chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFCs) and the exaggerated
retention of heat in the atmosphere due to release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from
fossil fuels.</div>
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Within one
generation the widespread definition of ‘untamed’ nature has gone from the
‘other’ that should be feared, to the concept of ‘Gaia’ that needs to be
respected and protected. Once the return of an ice age was feared and now we
are worried about uncontrolled global warming. Communities in harsh
environments face difficulties made worse by climate change.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Can traditional landscape art ever be more than a nostalgic icon
of nature in the 21st Century? Will it only offer a superficial view of nature?
Even mass media and journalism struggle, through individual stories, to portray
our changed relationship to nature as much as art fails to contain it within an
isolating frame. From the single viewpoint of landscape art the global scale of
the human-induced changes escapes understanding. Whereas the traditional
landscape picture often depicted a scene resulting from the efforts of humans
to establish cultivation within wilderness, today it might depict a wilderness
that is being preserved. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Even before the current ecological crisis became evident with the
publication of Rachel Carson’s <b><i>Silent Spring</i></b> <b>(1962)</b> <b><i>(1)</i></b>
the extension of our senses by technical means such as infra-red photography,
radar and <o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjplrCrw_I8abzjs90WIauLRGQjcb9DBMp4Vzx-rE7PCsqWJvZdiP0xZUxmXrvBAktnF1DqKlQNtpDU9IeDSjXCiDPefyv_mbRPIihUdK5qvW9v-yUB3EkNUXal6tBpKqMQEv72MCq-Qg/s1600/Typhoon+Radar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjplrCrw_I8abzjs90WIauLRGQjcb9DBMp4Vzx-rE7PCsqWJvZdiP0xZUxmXrvBAktnF1DqKlQNtpDU9IeDSjXCiDPefyv_mbRPIihUdK5qvW9v-yUB3EkNUXal6tBpKqMQEv72MCq-Qg/s200/Typhoon+Radar.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Page 171 Plate 187<br />
<i>Structure of a Typhoon</i>. Radar<br />
Photograph: Official Photograph<br />
U.S. Navy. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>The New Landscape <br />in Art and Science</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></td></tr>
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the mapping of large-scale phenomena with isoline maps caused an
increasing disparity between the practices of art and new visions of nature.
The ability to see nature via technology has produced little change in the
cadence of art. The investigation of nature by science produces images that can
be like echoes returned from darkness. </div>
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Gyorgy Kepes’ book <b><i>The New Landscape in Art and Science</i></b>
<b>(1956)</b> <b>(<i>2</i>)</b> contains</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSe4e2F9Yzrb4iySuMEE50OepcWcn-bnblHwRv9YNG0ZndkjkyaWQvkM_1pA2I3I-E8dw7s6bYkdFSU-d90G9PbOkEgpotijpQ5inlp1jjWFAAEE0BSczdNdyBTCnw3QQ9Osbeyiej1Q/s1600/Lily%252C+Radiograph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSe4e2F9Yzrb4iySuMEE50OepcWcn-bnblHwRv9YNG0ZndkjkyaWQvkM_1pA2I3I-E8dw7s6bYkdFSU-d90G9PbOkEgpotijpQ5inlp1jjWFAAEE0BSczdNdyBTCnw3QQ9Osbeyiej1Q/s200/Lily%252C+Radiograph.jpg" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Page 167 Plate 179<br />
<span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><i>The New Landscape in <br />Art and Science</i></span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr>
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many beautiful images from biology and
physics, but the pictures are nearly all photographs. Pictures of organisms and
crystals either pictured by x-rays on film, cameras seeing through microscopes,
telescopes or a radar screen provide an impressive collection of uncanny
images. On page 217 a high-speed photograph of water droplets caught in
mid fall by Harold Edgerton is compared with the shape of a Greco-Roman
flask. On page 323 a relief construction
by Hans Arp from 1932 is compared to a 17th Century Japanese garden design.
These deliberate juxtapositions occur throughout the book and seem to suggest
that there are universal principles of formation and design that underlie
natural processes as well as manufactured products.</div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: left;">Page 262 Plate 321<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i><i>Reinforced<br />Concrete Structure :The New<br /> Landscape in Art and Science</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></td></tr>
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Gyorgy Kepes used
the word ‘landscape’ as a metaphor for an emerging designed world which might
be realised through the application of science. The implicit message behind the
examples of modern architecture was that new technology should create buildings
free from the restrictions of classicism and express almost biological
principles of construction. The design for the Sydney Opera house was decided
in the year following publication. The tone of this book is optimistic, in the
style of Buckminster Fuller. By stating that mathematics describes the
processes that create both natural and engineered structures, a fusion of the
two seems possible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Using science to build the future was a theme of the 1950s, both
in the the capitalist West and the communist East As a statement of cultural
difference, <st1:place>Europe</st1:place> and the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> chose to express the application of
modernist principles in art, as well as technology. The <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state> art critic Clement Greenberg championed
the abstract painter Jackson Pollock. Greenberg’s aesthesis was based on a
principle of purity of form which was to be attained by rejecting realism. Even
the possibility of ideas from outside art was excluded, especially literary
ideas such as truth, beauty and virtue.
Abstract art was to be restricted to formal elements of painting,
flatness and paint itself.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Modernism was a form of investigation, comparable to the work of
scientists who were defining nature in terms of four fundamental forces;
gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.
Greenberg’s assessment of art sought to define painting as the exploration of
the properties height, width, brightness and colour. Perhaps it is a
coincidence that some of Jackson Pollock’s paintings resemble images of
sub-atomic particles photographed in bubble-chambers operated at that time. <o:p></o:p>The difference between the
two methods is that the images of the tracks of particles revealed in the
physics experiments are not intrinsically abstract but the mathematics needed
to understand them is.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center">
<span class="x-small">An example of the type of interaction being studied by Experiment 234 in the Fermilab 15-Foot Bubble Chamber</span></div>
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Gyorgy Kepes was within the canon of writers and philosophers
identified by Susan Sontag in her essay <b><i>One Culture and the New
Sensibility</i></b> <b>(1965)</b> <b>(<i>3</i>)</b> Susan Sontag predicted that
emerging technologies would lead to new creative possibilities operating in an
area between science and art. Within a few generations the transformative power
of technology had eclipsed the traditional circumstances of landscape art. Wealth
came from underground, in the form of oil, instead of agriculture. The
landscape was increasingly seen from above. The view from the <st1:place><st1:placename>Eiffel</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Tower</st1:placetype></st1:place> had influenced some painters even before
the proliferation of aerial photography after the Second World War. Television
apparently brought distant places closer. The landscape was traversed by
telephone lines and overhead networks of electricity distribution. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With some naivety Susan Sontag’s essay praises “the clean
automated technology” that she claimed would help to end the intellectual
antagonism between 19th Century “smoky” industrial processes and “literary men”
such as Emerson, Thoreau and Ruskin. Her theory led her to predict a new
non-literary culture created by “certain painters, sculptors, architects,
social planners, film makers, TV technicians, neurologists, musicians,
electronics engineers, dancers, philosophers, and sociologists.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
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Landscape art was not one of Susan Sontag’s interests. In her
opinion nature became “a vessel of spiritual and aesthetic values” only in
opposition to the dehumanising industrialisation of the 19th Century. Her essay
anticipated that new cultural forms would emerge from what she saw as an ending to the artificial 200 year separation between science and art. Vehemently rejecting
C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ thesis,(<i>4</i>) she argued that there is a false
division between the concepts of “unintelligible, morally neutral science and
technology” and the “morally committed, human-scale art”. Claiming that art -
“is never simply (or even mainly) a vehicle of ideas or of moral sentiments. It
is, first of all, an object modifying our consciousness and sensibility,
changing the composition, however slightly, of the humus that nourishes all
specific ideas and sentiments” - Susan Sontag argued that the essential
functions of art and science overlap. She expected that avant-garde culture
would increasingly occupy a new middle ground.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the following years a few interesting but now largely forgotten
creations fulfilled that speculation. As predicted by Susan Sontag, it was a
designer who suggested to the artist Edward Ihnatowicz that he should build the
first environment-sensitive sculpture <b><i>Sound Activated Mobile</i></b> <b>(</b><st1:stockticker><b>SAM</b></st1:stockticker><b>)</b>. The piece was exhibited at the <b><i>Cybernetic </i></b><b><i>Serendipity</i></b>
exhibition in 1968. <st1:stockticker><b><i>SAM</i></b></st1:stockticker><b><i> </i></b>comprised
an array of four microphones attached to the front of sound-reflecting dishes,
combined into a flower-like structure, on top of an electro-hydraulically
operated ‘spine’ which moved the structure to face the source of
sounds. By 1971 this project had <b><i>Senster</i></b>. With
the help of engineers from the Mullard and the Philips electronics companies,
Edward Ihnatowicz created a kind of early electronicl robot. Unlike the
mechanical automata created as toys since Hellenistic times, the <b><i>Senster </i></b>was
capable of self-determined movements enabled by a computer programme. <b><i>Senster
</i></b>responded to sounds and movement made by gallery visitors. The system
detected sound with microphones and movement with short-range radar built into
its ‘head’.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJG9K4ET2UgBcKCoEBNeVNlEqm9U1P8kjg0YTPCyupWvipAUFfR8mLCzL4Ugzbq3xwNPpzOkfhMULqfnwGOHBELXN_ypoDlw0rUTQz9QgtwRsmvEJJFp92DGp0_eXk7i3P73CYJdRug/s1600/senster9-lrg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJG9K4ET2UgBcKCoEBNeVNlEqm9U1P8kjg0YTPCyupWvipAUFfR8mLCzL4Ugzbq3xwNPpzOkfhMULqfnwGOHBELXN_ypoDlw0rUTQz9QgtwRsmvEJJFp92DGp0_eXk7i3P73CYJdRug/s320/senster9-lrg.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Senster</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
developed into a computer-controlled
mechanical giraffe-like moving sculpture called the </div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although its legs
were firmly anchored to the stage on which it was presented, the elongated neck
and head moved around a volume of 30 cubic metres. After a two years of development
the device was installed at the Evoluon, the permanent science and technology
exhibition run by Philips in <st1:city><st1:place>Eindhoven</st1:place></st1:city>. The creature-like device measured 2.5
metres high and four metres long. There was no attempt to cover the welded
steel tubing skeleton or to hide the Philips P 9201 computer that controlled<b><i>
Senster. </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems appropriate to refer <i>to <b>Senster</b></i> as a device
as much as a motorised sculpture. The project was located very much in the
centre of the ‘new sensibility’ field predicted by Susan Sontag. The project
featured both in the book <b><i>Science and Technology in Art Today</i></b> <b>(1972)
(5<i>)</i></b> and the <st1:stockticker>BBC</st1:stockticker> book <b><i>Tomorrow's World</i></b> -<b>s<i>econd Volume</i></b><i> </i>(<b>1971)</b> (6<i>) </i>based on the popular science
and technology TV programme of the same name. The installation of Senster at
Evoluon followed an established tradition of celebrating technology in special
exhibitions. From the <b><i>Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations</i></b>
(<b>1851) </b>in <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city> to the <st1:state><st1:place><b><i>New York</i></b></st1:place></st1:state><b><i> World’s Fair (</i></b><b>1939)</b> the future development of society was imagined as an
industrial design process. The 1851 exhibition was housed in the <st1:place><st1:placename>Crystal</st1:placename> <st1:placename>Palace</st1:placename></st1:place> which was so large it contained mature
trees under it glass roofs. The 1939 New York World’s Fair featured
the General Motors<b><i> </i></b>sponsored<b> <i>Futurama</i></b>. The diorama
depicted an imaginary landscape of 1960 in which mountains, rivers and lakes
were straddled by a network of expressways for motor vehicles. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Exhibitions such as these relocated the idea of limitless power
from nature to technology. In his book <b><i>American Technological Sublime (</i>1994)
(<i>7) </i></b>Richard E. Nye described the rise of technology as a rival not
only to the actual power of nature but also its capacity<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to create sensations of grandeur and awe within the witnessing
individual and society. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This feeling was already entering culture when J.M.W. Turner
produced his painting <b><i>Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway</i></b>
<b>(1844).</b> The viewer is invited to empathise as much with the tiny image
of a rabbit fleeing from the approaching steam locomotive as with the ingenuity
of the railway. The technological sublime became established in public awareness
during a 25 year period between the detonation of the first atomic bomb on <st1:date day="16" month="7" year="1945">the
16th July 1945</st1:date>
and the launch of Apollo 11 on <st1:date day="16" month="7" year="1969">the 16th July 1969</st1:date>. Seven years after the end of the Second
World War H-bombs 1000 times more powerful than the <st1:city><st1:place>Hiroshima</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:city><st1:place>Nagasaki</st1:place></st1:city> bombs were being tested. There seemed to
be a certain inevitability to the development of these weapons resembling the
planning for climate change today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Within nine years
of the detonation of the first nuclear bomb, nuclear power reactors were being
built. If we doubt that the quality of overpowering strength, attributed to
nature by Edmund Burke in 1756<b><i> (8)</i></b> , now resides with technology we only have to
consider that after the devastation of parts of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region> by the 2011 tsunami, it is the radiation
from the resulting damage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that is
most often remembered. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Susan Sontag’s eclectic list of people she imagined would create
the new fusion of science and art could be characterised as a benign patriarchal intellectuals. Writing just before the escalation of the Vietnam War her
essay presents a reassuring vision of a liberal technocracy that would not just
build a better mousetrap but also design new systems for living. Outside of the
rarefied atmosphere of happenings and installation art, it was architecture
through which modernism was most widely felt. Brutalist architecture was an
international style of building that displays an interest in geometry that can
be traced back to ideas of Platonic shapes studied in ancient <st1:country-region><st1:place>Greece</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Le Corbusier’s often quoted dictum that
“a house is a machine for living in” influenced the new era.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although many new housing projects were born out of the genuine
desire to create high quality housing, the radical style of this architecture
was eventualy perceived to be alienating and associated with unapproachable
public authorities. To explore the potential of Computer-Aided Urban Design to
improve the work of architects, Nicholas Negroponte<b> </b>with the Machine
Architecture Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) built a
device that was to examine the ability of computers to interact with the
unpredictability of behaviour. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The experiment was called <b><i>SEEK</i></b> and
consisted of a</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjd3PiLpdcize-XIx6-2KCBQzklWCvPTJ2z50zoAAEK1PCySpMW6jV3uiNXnJhAhmgBLQNk1Zv9aHCZQminZhyhu4UJgg1UmpHXfOlHRYSNONj7ArnY9f6FmE8KdpnyaDUhQ_zHq1pGg/s1600/SEEK-ArtandTechBenthall-p2-x640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjd3PiLpdcize-XIx6-2KCBQzklWCvPTJ2z50zoAAEK1PCySpMW6jV3uiNXnJhAhmgBLQNk1Zv9aHCZQminZhyhu4UJgg1UmpHXfOlHRYSNONj7ArnY9f6FmE8KdpnyaDUhQ_zHq1pGg/s200/SEEK-ArtandTechBenthall-p2-x640.jpg" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>SEEK</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
computer controlled miniature gantry crane which was programmed to
find and stack a collection of small wooden blocks in an open-topped 5 by 8
foot tray with transparent sides. To simulate computer/human interactions the
tray was populated by gerbils that constantly disrupted the arrangements of the
blocks. The project was exhibited the <b><i>Software </i></b>exhibition <b>(1970)</b>,
curated by Jack Burnham for the Jewish Museum in <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state>. Although the Machine Architecture Group
was funded by a mixture of defence and industrial funding, <b><i>SEEK</i></b>
became a de-facto art installation in which the gerbils came to represent
people trapped in a technologically determined environment over which they had
little or no control.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
By describing the
project as an experiment in which the computer programme was the </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg165NH8czfzm_uTa8eC0NqY98fLCLJDGA1lqovQ0IA8mPBXtAybup1vPSnmH3wJUeqalZCXnpKnvFtEs2AHMYYY0EJ0mQXeKlp4p8JVJdYSOrJqeCqv6mkTY2cmA_jDcqEaMpPjkRXsg/s1600/SEEK-ArtandTech-p1-x640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg165NH8czfzm_uTa8eC0NqY98fLCLJDGA1lqovQ0IA8mPBXtAybup1vPSnmH3wJUeqalZCXnpKnvFtEs2AHMYYY0EJ0mQXeKlp4p8JVJdYSOrJqeCqv6mkTY2cmA_jDcqEaMpPjkRXsg/s200/SEEK-ArtandTech-p1-x640.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">SEEK</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
test subject,
and not the gerbils, the development team was able to get funding from the Ford
foundation and Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA- inventors of the
internet). As well as fulfilling Susan Sontag’s prediction of a new combined
art and science field, <b><i>SAM</i></b>, <b><i>Senster</i></b> and <b><i>SEEK</i></b> presented a new aspect of the technological sublime. Whereas technology
challenged the physical power of nature before the 1950s, after, information
technology appeared to have the ability to imitate its capacity for behaviour.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The<b><i> </i></b><b><i>SAM</i></b>, <b><i>Senster</i></b> and <b><i>SEEK</i></b> creations
re-imagined our relationship to nature. Although traditional landscape art made
an emotional connection to nature, depicting it almost as a material substance
in which we are immersed, it failed to account for its invisible underlying
forces. Throughout the 20th Century technological innovations, both destructive
and productive, challenged culture to acknowledge the aspects of nature
revealed by science but ignored by art. Even today it is quite common for
poetic writing or visual art to refer (often without irony) to the mythical
elements of earth, water, air and fire.. It is as if, from the viewpoint of
artists, Ancient Greek philosophy is still current.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
20th Century science fiction tended to infiltrate new knowledge of
nature into culture. Probably because of the association between science
fiction and 1930s ‘pulp’ magazines and staggeringly inept 1950s ‘B-picture’
films, this genre of writing is not included in the canon of literature.
Outside the science fiction ghetto, literature does not usually produce
narratives arising from an imagined alteration to the material functioning of
nature. One of the most outstanding exceptions to the inadequacies of science
fiction was Stanley Kubrick’s <b><i>2001 A Space Odyssey</i></b> filmed from
1965 to 1968. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Written in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke, the film seems to
be influenced by the philosophical ideas of the Russian rocket scientist and
pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935).. Stanley Kubrick had the audacity to create a
kind of new ‘Greek myth’ in which the narrative spans millions of years to
depict humans transcending earthly constraints. The new space-based destiny
revealed in the final scene is reminiscent of the panpsychism contemplated by
Tsiolkovsky and his followers. <b>(<i>9</i>)</b> The penultimate ‘star gate’
scene uses slit-scan filming to depict a transition to a new state of
existence. As this utopian idea has no physical actuality that can be
photographed, the slit-scan filming was used to create an abstracted visual
equivalence to an imaginary formless state beyond previously experienced
nature.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kubrick's eagerness to experiment with the fundamental qualities of film echoes the
playful innovations with signal manipulation created by George Martin and the
Beatles during the recording of their album Sergeant <b><i>Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band (</i>1967)</b>. While the dematerialisation of nature was a
feature of impressionist and cubist painting, it was a feature of the 1960s that
a film director and a record producer could contemplate the manipulation of
film and tape-recordings, media usually regarded as owing allegiance to
‘concrete reality’. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw1phQjqqNnpC_5gIkYH6Z2RZwwQBjokKDmbQqKdgCRlxNQWxxpUVka-cNCqyItYUGcE4JH-sRt1iwAn6VXy37MBCWTsODurafj8pacIwovC9nhuJ9UAEpHy6vEISO8s9mkQ_lISQ9BQ/s1600/Masolino%252C_fondazione_di_santa_maria_maggiore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw1phQjqqNnpC_5gIkYH6Z2RZwwQBjokKDmbQqKdgCRlxNQWxxpUVka-cNCqyItYUGcE4JH-sRt1iwAn6VXy37MBCWTsODurafj8pacIwovC9nhuJ9UAEpHy6vEISO8s9mkQ_lISQ9BQ/s320/Masolino%252C_fondazione_di_santa_maria_maggiore.jpg" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Masolino, <i>The Foundation of</i><br />
<i>Santa Maria Maggiore. </i><br />
Capodimonte Museum, Naples.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Renaissance painters had already used amorphous clouds as a
pictorial device to enable Earthbound people and celestial divine events to be
depicted within the same frame.<b><i>(10)</i></b> By the time John Constable was
producing his cloud studies science was dispelling their formlessness by
classifying them into types. The appreciation of form became more eclectic in the 20th Century. The elegant tracery of trees and the sculptured form of mountains was joined by a mapping of the apple-shaped form of the Earth’s magnetic field and photographs of the curtains of light created by auroras. The ‘floating castle’ architecture of battleships gave way to the sleek shapes of airships and submarines. The First World War trenches were attacked with clouds of poison gas, softer than rain but as deadly as shrapnel. Aeroplanes, cars and trains became progressively more streamlined. Motorway created the need for clover-leaf junctions.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Landscaped gardens that had become progressively softer since the
geometry of the 17th Century formal geometrical designs were superseded by the
English landscape park in the 18th Century. The expansive rolling landscapes
loved by aristocrats had their equivalence in the 20th Century. As wealth
creation moved from agriculture to industrial manufacturing the expanded
middle classes took to the golf course.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the mid-1960s there was a move by some artists in the <st1:country-region><st1:place>USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> - via soft sculpture and process art
(anti-form sculptures using flowing or slumped material) towards what became
known as ‘Land Art'. These large constructions were <b>c</b>reated in
remote areas of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> The sites were chosen partly because of
the need to purchase cheap land but also because Land Art sought a kind of <i>tabula
rasa</i> to establish a distance, both geographically and aesthetically, from
gallery-based art. Ostensibly, Land Art should be visited to experience the
intention of their artists. Inevitably, the constructions project themselves to
a wider public via photography, film and video. While publicising the
existence of Land Art, media representations of it also serve to emphasise its
unique geographical isolation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7YP9nSkIQrLjnBJ3gOLFUHDmTCnsz8Z2fTFfzE-vCt5WasroT8PwcpZlPij0e33qksCHeilzaHjX3c3QrSwzuCbmVyt7zNX8ldr1AUoFtw1WMXo99LjwAl2OixjdVgF2wWLr49g6a0w/s1600/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7YP9nSkIQrLjnBJ3gOLFUHDmTCnsz8Z2fTFfzE-vCt5WasroT8PwcpZlPij0e33qksCHeilzaHjX3c3QrSwzuCbmVyt7zNX8ldr1AUoFtw1WMXo99LjwAl2OixjdVgF2wWLr49g6a0w/s320/Spiral+Jetty.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Robert Smithson’s </span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"><i>Spiral Jetty</i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"> (</span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">1970</span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">) </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert Smithson’s
<b><i>Spiral Jetty</i></b> (<b>1970</b>) was made by placing 6,650 tons of rock
in the <st1:place>Great
Salt Lake, </st1:place><st1:state><st1:place>Utah</st1:place></st1:state>. The resulting 4.6 metre wide causeway is
460 metres long and leads away from the bank and spirals in on itself for two
and a quarter turns. The piece seems to mock the utility of the industrial work
that has left derelict sites nearby. Walter De Maria’s <b><i>Lightning Field</i></b>
(<b>1977</b>) is a construction of 400 stainless steel poles set vertically and
22 feet apart in a grid one mile by one kilometre. The piece suggests a kind of
pseudo-scientific experiment designed to attract lightning to the ground,
although there is only one photographed instance of this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Land Art creations often share visual similarities with scientific
or military installations. The <b><i>Lightning Field</i></b> resembles a
phased-array radio telescope, the type used to discover pulsars. One of Robert Smithson’s early pieces was <b><i>Partially</i></b><b><i>Buried Shed
(</i>1972) </b>made at <st1:place><st1:placename>Kent</st1:placename> <st1:placename>State</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>University,Ohio</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The wooden shed and piled-up soil
resembled some of the structures built to observe the detonation of the first
atomic bomb in <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXipsgXq3fV4asfPTf5dBrdlo351oBBA6M0309uOMmmMm-ADEHNVylqvS0FQOIdP2osmOaTjq0y_Szb5AIRISoc9XSF3aeucJDnofQvbm0ykB_qdAdZJpwpykNTGxXD0qcwsaVAVaBQ/s1600/Blog+Trinity+Shed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXipsgXq3fV4asfPTf5dBrdlo351oBBA6M0309uOMmmMm-ADEHNVylqvS0FQOIdP2osmOaTjq0y_Szb5AIRISoc9XSF3aeucJDnofQvbm0ykB_qdAdZJpwpykNTGxXD0qcwsaVAVaBQ/s320/Blog+Trinity+Shed.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="text-align: justify;">Left:</b><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Preparations for recording the detonation</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: justify;"> of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-align: justify;"> the</span></span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> first </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">'atomic' bomb </span><span style="font-size: small;">at the Trinity test site in </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> New Mexico, </span><span style="font-size: small;"> United States.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> <b>Right:</b> </span><i style="font-size: medium;">Partially</i><span style="font-size: small;"><i> Buried Shed</i> at Kent Sate </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> University </span><span style="font-size: small;"><st1:place>Ohio.(1972)</st1:place></span><st1:place style="font-size: medium;"> </st1:place></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
1945. Conversely, military or scientific projects sometimes have the appearance of land art. Concrete sound-mirrors built to
detect aircraft in the pre-radar era of the 1920’s could be mistaken for land
art projects if presented out of context. Radio aerials constructed from
concentric cylinders of wire mesh for communication with submarines also
resemble a kind of Land Art creation.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmzIMx6RlCIs1Ded4UkvXlXQFiNdHJz0N2zXlmpWG9TRObXpSUlkJqcuv_1kJw15qXlSxCxmKorMn5laoNqj_PmRKbtt71HchWIKfcMV_PjuLqvTsbYP5lXTFh-F5FS3gQf14U7yPZeg/s1600/flr9_380is.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmzIMx6RlCIs1Ded4UkvXlXQFiNdHJz0N2zXlmpWG9TRObXpSUlkJqcuv_1kJw15qXlSxCxmKorMn5laoNqj_PmRKbtt71HchWIKfcMV_PjuLqvTsbYP5lXTFh-F5FS3gQf14U7yPZeg/s320/flr9_380is.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Wullenweber<b> </b>Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Both Land Art and these homologous structures could be considered
as ‘heterotopias’ – a term coined by Michael Foucault to describe sites that
only achieve significance in relation to places or processes far away. Foucault’s theory of heterotopias describes different categories of such
spaces. The military installations could belong to his category of
‘heterotopias of crisis or deviation’ because of their implied threat from a
distance. Walter De Maria’s <b><i>Lightning Field</i></b> also implicitly
refers to the danger of a lightning strike. Another category of Foucault’s heterotopias
links distant places. The Field Of Mars in ancient <st1:city><st1:place>Rome</st1:place></st1:city> was used as a ceremonial space dedicated
to the Roman god of war. The idea that planets and their ‘celestial spheres’
acted intimately on human affairs was a common belief. In the 1960s, connecting
the celestial with the Earth was literally accomplished at <st1:place><st1:placename>Cinder</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Lake</st1:placetype></st1:place> in <st1:state><st1:place>Arizona</st1:place></st1:state> where explosives were used to create an
exact replica of a cratered area on the Moon. The site was used for training
Apollo astronauts and testing equipment. Land Art projects that explore the theme of distance include naked-eye observatories such as Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt, Roden Crater by James Turrell and Star Axis by Charles Ross, which follow a tradition exemplified by the18th Century Jantar Mantar Observatory in Jaipur, India. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Another category
of heterotopias identified by Foucault signifies different times. Most
Land Art sites allude to entropy and the passage of time. Spiral Jetty was
submerged by rising water levels for several years only to emerge covered in
crystals. A condition of visiting <b><i>Lightning Field</i></b> is that viewers
are required to live next to the work for 24 hours in a log cabin next to the
installation. Whereas traditional landscape pictures offer an image of nature
frozen in time, Land Art places the viewer within the landscape and are so
large that time must be spent traversing them. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Another non-art heterotopia that suggests distance and time is the
Svalbard Global Seed Vault which contains a stock of frozen seeds. Located on the arctic <st1:place><st1:placetype>island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename>Spitsbergen</st1:placename></st1:place>, the underground facility is intended to
ensure the continuation of agriculture in the event of a global catastrophe.
Storing seeds for every type of food crop grown, the entire agricultural world
is represented in its deep-frozen tunnels. The facility connotes the 12,000
year history of agriculture and time extending into the distant future. The
facility has a symbolic power that exceeds that of many conceptual art
creations.<o:p></o:p><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_6_QjL87kQNSRZAr5-Cj7WfzcKKV-U9YORetGAe_My5MB4CppI2Lm8tyN6ejP4CKnMCegrSmX6Q7MJL3g7xRAe46sBQUJnbrchALgrrpOL50EJxfvqgJgFVhazzYVFs7rZewkVacLw/s1600/Sval-bard-seed-bank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_6_QjL87kQNSRZAr5-Cj7WfzcKKV-U9YORetGAe_My5MB4CppI2Lm8tyN6ejP4CKnMCegrSmX6Q7MJL3g7xRAe46sBQUJnbrchALgrrpOL50EJxfvqgJgFVhazzYVFs7rZewkVacLw/s200/Sval-bard-seed-bank.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The entrance to the <span style="text-align: start;"> Svalbard <br />Global Seed Vault</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Whereas the <st1:place>Svalbard</st1:place> facility contains the dormant genes of future plants from around
the planet, the Eden Project in <st1:city><st1:place>Cornwall</st1:place></st1:city> <st1:country-region><st1:place>UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> uses botanical greenhouses in the form of
geodesic domes, or biomes, to emulate the different climatic conditions of the
world. Unlike the glass greenhouses of Victorian botanical gardens which were
build in the form of regular polyhedral shapes, the Eden Project has biomorphic
bubble-shaped domes made from high-tech plastic. As well as being a heterotopia
for the planet, the site is in a former clay pit that was previously devoid of
plant life. Like many ‘late period’ Land Art projects, the Eden Project has a
remedial aspect that is as symbolic as practical.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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A more radical precursor to the <st1:city><st1:place>Eden</st1:place></st1:city> project was the Biosphere 2 hermetically
sealed analogue of the biosphere. Built from 1987 to 1994 the project
was designed to test the possibility of emulating the entire ecosystem of the
earth to such a degree that eight people could live in it for two years without
air, water or food from outside. The facility was built with different biomes that
housed ecosystems emulating: rainforest, ocean, coral reef, mangrove swamp,
savannah and an agricultural zone to provide food, water and air for the ‘biospherian’
inhabitants. Crucially, the inability of the designers to adequately predict the interaction between the atmosphere and the sealed ecosystem
caused oxygen levels to fall.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Biosphere 2 has
since been modified for use as a research centre in which scientist come and
go on a daily basis. <b>(<i>11)</i></b> Because the biomes can be isolated from
the outside atmosphere the centre is used for Earth systems research, such as
investigating the effect of climate change on specific species of plants.
Facilities such as these may be used in the future to test the feasibility of genetically
engineering plants to increase their photosynthetic process by 25%, with a
corresponding increase in CO2 uptake from the atmosphere. Initially food crops
might be altered but there are proposals to re-engineer what remains of
‘nature’ so as to deal with the results of climate change.<b>(<i>12</i>)</b><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429892.900-should-we-upgrade-photosynthesis-and-grow-supercrops.html#.VZrYYbUgk7I" target="_blank">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429892.900-should-we-upgrade-photosynthesis-and-grow-supercrops.html#.VZrYYbUgk7I</a><br />
<br /></div>
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Attempting to create a ‘nature 2.0’ <b>(<i>13</i>)</b>
would be as controversial as other geo-engineering plans such as altering the
albedo of the atmosphere with aerosol particles or sequestering CO2
underground. If such projects were realised we (or someone )would have our hand on the world
thermostat as we could release the gas or switch off the aerosol pumping if an
ice-age threatened. Even without such drastic measures, humanity is already
flying the planet without a chart to guide us. The failure of the original
Biosphere 2 project suggests that re-engineering what is left of the natural
world would be an impossibly ambitious and dangerous process. However,
evolutionary computation has the potential to create algorithms that are
useable, but so complex as to be beyond human understanding. In the future this
power might be used to try to re-order the biosphere to function in a stable way
within the conditions created by humans. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This scale of geo-engineering would be the antithesis of the sustainability movement
that seeks to modify economic activity to fit in with natural systems. The
‘hard engineering’ that tried to stop river flooding with concrete levees and
stop coastal erosion with sea-walls can be replaced with natural water
interception and salt marshes. Renewable energy systems; photovoltaic
electricity, wind-power and tidal generators are an alternative to fossil
fuels. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The idea that human influence over Earth systems is now so great
that we are living in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, is gaining
acceptance. Some geologists are sceptical, they depend on their system of
classification of eras and epochs as physicists need their periodic table. As
there are artificial elements in the periodic table we also live in an epoch of
altered Earth systems. Even if computers are not used to re-engineer eco-systems
they can be used to help us imagine the Anthropocene. The narrated computer
animation <b><i>Welcome to the Anthropocene </i></b><i>(</i><b>2012</b>) <b>(<i>14</i>)</b>
by Owen Gaffney and Félix Pharand-Deschênes used climate data and composite
satellite images rendered onto a virtual globe. Such data visualisations are
digital heterotopias, the most auspicious realisation of Susan Sontag’s ‘new
sensibility’ prediction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Science can
provide facts about the Anthropocene but we need new art to help us contemplate
its meaning. Data visualisations are important but they will not replace art.
We need a new equivalent to landscape art that will help us to consider the
distinction between nature and artifice. In the Anthropocene the ‘walled
garden’ is now greater than the wilderness that used to surround it. The ‘lost
question’ of what is natural needs to be re-discovered. Whether we are inside nature looking out or on the outside looking in, the images of this future art
will be the Anthropocene desiderata.</div>
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<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
The Arizona Connection.</h3>
</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QQgirIAk0yMciiC-QzNPIRtrdTMYC8H5qHmwwSloVIjeXyd90HLEGLZ7tJ1VwYl_4hO7dIUsNj_jmH07-zxlAJN7iGqFTVNKEkig0RHX0Vl8nlFwMkPDNk-1AcUx5j6lCoraVaGSmA/s1600/Mars+ans+its+Canals+44-45+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QQgirIAk0yMciiC-QzNPIRtrdTMYC8H5qHmwwSloVIjeXyd90HLEGLZ7tJ1VwYl_4hO7dIUsNj_jmH07-zxlAJN7iGqFTVNKEkig0RHX0Vl8nlFwMkPDNk-1AcUx5j6lCoraVaGSmA/s320/Mars+ans+its+Canals+44-45+crop.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Due to an optical illusion Giovanni Schiaparelli </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">misidentified marks </span><span style="font-size: small;">on the surface of Mars as </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">connected</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">lines in 1877. Compounding this error, h</span><span style="font-size: small;">is Italian word </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">‘caneli’ </span><span style="font-size: small;">was </span><span style="font-size: small;"> translated into English as</span><span style="font-size: small;"> ‘canals’ instead of </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">the less evocative</span><span style="font-size: small;"> word 'channel'.As well as observing Mars </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">in great detail from the Flagstaff Observatory, his other</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">achievement was the discovery of asteroid <i>793 <st1:state><st1:place>Arizona</st1:place></st1:state></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><st1:state><st1:place>in 1907.</st1:place></st1:state></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
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Arizona, as well as being the
American state in which, <i>Roden Crater</i>,
Biosphere 2, the former NASA training site at Cinder Lake and the setting for
the stereoscopic anaglyph film <i>It Came from Outer Space </i>(1953) can be found, is also home to the Flagstaff
Observatory. After establishing the observatory
in 1894 Percival <st1:city><st1:place>Lowell</st1:place></st1:city> wrote two books, <i>Mars</i>
(1895) <b>(14)</b> and <i>Mars and its Canals</i> (1906)
which had a lasting impact on astronomical science. The thesis of both books
was predicated on the supposition that canals are visible on Mars, and that they
were build by a civilisation of intelligent beings to save their planet from
encroaching desertification. This idea is now known to be untrue, and based
entirely on the mis-seeing of unrelated marks on the surface of the planet as
connected lines. Lowell’s belief was so influential that it is possible that although
some astronomers may have managed to glimpse craters on Mars (without
photographing them) decades before they were seen by the Mariner 4 spacecraft,
they were reluctant to publish their findings as they feared that they might
not be believed. The paradigm shift, from imagining Mars as an abode of life to
understanding that it is more similar to our Moon than the Earth, was so gradual
that even as the Mariner 4 spacecraft cruised towards the planet in 1965 it was
predicted that areas of vegetation would be photographed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Percival Lowell was a
businessman and scientist born in 1855. His generation grew up with the
expectation that the power of engineering would only ever increase. The invention of large-scale steel production
enabled continent-wide railway networks to be built. Percival Lowell’s books
mark the period in which global-scale engineering was first imagined. The
possibility of producing planet-wide engineering projects occurred to <st1:city><st1:place>Lowell</st1:place></st1:city> as the <st1:city><st1:place>Suez</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Panama</st1:place></st1:country-region> canals were being built or planned. Industrialisation
caused some artists to move their attention from nature as the application of
science in the technologies of building, energy and communication became
central to international culture. The futurist painters particularly identified
their revolutionary zeal with new technology.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibDwwK8sEno4ptQLWWNXJt8MXb35DynZlN0RlYrsH_yfewaSAO4F2zRHZ7AcTHFw7M9kmHrQTdgRFU438lzfUvrBquFQggwTZcD9Hv88bJVNWQjfJqzi5Ql112JqWRHRn4F5oN3JBcPw/s1600/Is_Two_over_one_Railroad_Fare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibDwwK8sEno4ptQLWWNXJt8MXb35DynZlN0RlYrsH_yfewaSAO4F2zRHZ7AcTHFw7M9kmHrQTdgRFU438lzfUvrBquFQggwTZcD9Hv88bJVNWQjfJqzi5Ql112JqWRHRn4F5oN3JBcPw/s320/Is_Two_over_one_Railroad_Fare.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cross-section at Richmond, V.A. Three lines cross<br />
Chesapeake and Ohio, Seaboard Air-line and the<br />
Southern Railroad</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Science fiction, radio, film and architecture
celebrated technology through stories and the essence of their form. Radio,
film and modern architecture owe their existence to the application of science.
Wall plaques depicting the trades that made the <st1:place><st1:placename>Empire</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype>Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> are placed around the entrance lobby of that iconic
building. Whereas 18th century industries relied on sites of water power clustered
around fall lines and processed agricultural products restricted to climatic
areas, the makers of the 20<sup>th</sup> century were served by networks of
transport and power. The <st1:place><st1:placename>Empire</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>State</st1:placetype></st1:place> building lobby images look as if they could easily
belong to a Soviet building of the same era in the U.S.S.R. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKC_G-1Ssnlj-oUE2TTuRk9UC-w987jSGRr0Sxm4R0OLQoGcRecrkc181fQe2_F70Fqel-giBZuZ40xKZ5_rRa0StsWFUACzk0D3-mZWn-Lze3UapkuZH0X3cxeJm1n74jJhBapotbug/s1600/Empire+State+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKC_G-1Ssnlj-oUE2TTuRk9UC-w987jSGRr0Sxm4R0OLQoGcRecrkc181fQe2_F70Fqel-giBZuZ40xKZ5_rRa0StsWFUACzk0D3-mZWn-Lze3UapkuZH0X3cxeJm1n74jJhBapotbug/s400/Empire+State+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Empire State Building, Lobby.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Percival Lowell imagined that
Mars was experiencing a process of environmental decline that was natural, but
today’s speculation about geo-engineering the Earth is a response to the challenge
of climate change. Means of changing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth,
aerosol particles created and pumped into the upper atmosphere, space mirrors,
are unlikely to be attempted. The more straightforward concepts of sequestering
carbon dioxide underground after capturing it from power plant flue gasses or
even extracting the gas from the atmosphere seem less extreme by comparison. All
of these schemes would involve the use of extra energy that would contribute to
global warming if derived from fossil fuels. The only energy sources free from
CO2 emissions
are the renewable ones; wind, tide and solar and the ‘atomic’ options of
nuclear fission and the as yet unachieved thermonuclear fusion. After 60 years
of nuclear fission power the I.T.E.R. experimental fusion reactor in <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region> is not expected to produce any power until 2050. Industrialisation may have invented the idea of the future being different from the past but science helped to define uncertainty..</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<br /></div>
By far the greatest unknown
for the future is synthetic biology. Whereas the laser beam and nuclear energy
were predicted by mathematics, the possibilities and consequences of
engineering biology are incalculable within the context of the biosphere as a
whole. Genetically engineered crops are already in use and micro organisms have
been changed to produce diesel oil, short-circuiting the fossilisation
process by millions of years. The possibilities of this are tremendous. As well
as increasing the production of food it might be possible to increase the
efficiency of the photosynthetic process by up to 25%. If the genes that caused
this effect were to be introduced to uncultivated plant this could also have
the effect of removing much of the CO<span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span> emissions added to the atmosphere.<br />
<br />
The idea of
reconstructing ecosystems damaged by climate change could be extended to change
the whole of the biosphere. Human influence already affects the evolution of
species without our intention. It is no longer just a question of reducing biodiversity;
the species that survive in the Anthropocene will be genetically changed by the environment we have created. In
the age of the technological sublime we already behave as if our industrial and
agricultural industries were a given process as inevitable as nature. Laurens van der Post once suggested that the
continued existence of wilderness is necessary for the psychological
well-being of humanity. If the Anthropocene removes the psychological expansion
chamber into which we once escaped the pressure of our techno-civilisation, art
will have to work harder.<b><i> </i></b> .</div>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Gyorgi Kepes - The distinction between images of purely artificial systems such as the left image of oscillations within electronic circuits, made visible by an oscilloscope and the centre photograph of destructive shock-wave in a sheet of glass ( A natural process within an artificial substance.) The right image shows an x-ray diffraction photograph of DNA - an artificial abstracted image of a natural molecule. The X shape is caused by x-rays diffracted by the helical shape of DNA, recorded on a photographic emulsion.</span><b style="font-size: medium;">The New Landscape in Art and Science. 1956.</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata" target="_blank">http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6330729-anthropocene-desiderata</a></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(1) </span>London: Penguin in association with Hamish Hamilton,</b></div>
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<b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(2) </span>Chicago : Paul Theobald</b></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(3)</span></i></b></span><b><i> </i>SONTAG, S. <i>Against Interpretation</i>. New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966, Chapter 5: Section 5.</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(4) </span></i></b></span><b>SNOW, C.P. <i>The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution</i>: 1961: New York: Cambridge University Press.</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf" target="_blank">http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf</a></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(5) </span></i></b></span><b>BENTHAM, J. London: Thames and Hudson. Pages 78-83. </b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(6) </span></i></b></span><b>BAXTER,R. and BURKE, J. London: B.B.C. Page 201.</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(7) </span></i></b></span><b>Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press </b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(8) </span></i></b></span><b> Burke, Edmund. </b><b><i>A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful</i>,</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(9) </span></i></b></span><b>TSIOLKOVSKY, K. The Will of the Universe. The Unknown Intelligence, 1928</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(10) </span></i></b></span><b><i> </i>DAMISH, H. A Theory of/cloud/:Toward a History of Painting. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2002, Plates 2-5.</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(11) </span></i></b></span><b>New Scientist 27th July 2013 Pages 41- 45</b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(12) </span></i></b></span><b>New Scientist: 5th July 2008: Pages 32- 35<i> </i></b><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(13) Welcome to the Anthropocene.</span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="http://www.igbp.net/5.1081640c135c7c04eb480001217.html" target="_blank">http://www.igbp.net/5.1081640c135c7c04eb480001217.html</a></span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b><i>(14) <a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433069087785;view=1up;seq=13" target="_blank">http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433069087785;view=1up;seq=13</a></i></b></span><br />
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-40158940441135509152013-12-11T14:03:00.000+00:002013-12-16T22:26:55.386+00:00Plato's Cave<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-7037975838277101602013-12-08T19:59:00.001+00:002021-05-24T15:00:20.281+01:00MAPSEC - a roadmap<!--[if !mso]>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In my July post 'Masers on
Ice' I outlined a proposal to use overlapping maser beams to create a zone of melted
ice into which a capsule could descend towards a subglacial lake and then return to the surface of the ice field via a similarly melted zone
at the top of the device. As the zone of overlapping maser beams moved through
the ice the melt-water would re-freeze, negating any problems caused by the
pressurisation of lake-water due to the overburden of ice as well as
eliminating contamination such as that caused by a drill hole. In this blog post
I will outline a ‘road map’ to the realised project, although I promise not to
use the phrase “going forward”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">1) The very first stage of
the project would be for a laboratory to undertake an experiment in which
masers operating on different frequencies projected beams into a block of ice,
and where they overlapped, use constructive interference to generate the 2.45
GHz frequency commonly used by microwave ovens. An object placed on the surface
of the block of ice could be made to descend into the ice and be navigated
along a selected path. Theory about and observations of melting ice in
microwave ovens predict that the process should be very slow because:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a)<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The hydrogen
bonds of ice are stronger than those of water and need more energy to heat up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b)<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ice is less efficient at absorbing microwave
energy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c)<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Only some of the
harmonic waves produced by mixing beams of different wavelengths would be the water-heating
2.45 GHz frequency.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">2) These manifestations of
heating by radio frequency constructive interference in ice would not necessarily be a
problem for this project if the otherwise wasted harmonic frequencies could be
harvested and turned into heat or mechanical motion. Ideally this would be some
form of coating on the outside of the capsule that heated in response to the
non 2.45 GHz harmonic frequencies. Another approach could be to convert this
radio energy into electrical current subsequently used to power conventional
ohmic heaters on the skin of the capsule. This harvesting/heating process could
create a layer of water between the skin of the capsule and the surrounding ice
which <u>would then interact with the 2.45 GHz frequency so as to produce
further melting of</u> <u>adjacent ice</u>. This region of water, although absorbing
the 2.45 GHz energy, should remain transparent to the other harmonic
frequencies harvested for power. The lattice of radio dipoles on the skin of
the vehicle would be needed anyway to protect internal electronics from damage
and radio frequency interference from the maser beams illuminating the skin of
the capsule. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">3. After experimenting with
passive objects sinking into the ice, the above mentioned system of harvesting
the harmonic frequencies would need to be evaluated. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">a) At first the process of
exploiting the electrical energy made available from the non 2.45 GHz
frequencies would be used for heating the skin of the capsule. Later versions
of the capsule could be constructed with contra-rotating upper and lower
halves, powered by internal batteries or electrical current derived from
the harvesting of radio energy. If the skin of the capsule were to be furnished
with spiral ridges, with left and right handed threads on upper and lower
halves, the contra rotating sections could propel the capsule through the ice.
The upper and lower sections would need to be contra-rotating so as to work
against each others torque. Reversing the direction of rotation would propel
the capsule upwards.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">b) Perhaps frictional heating
caused by the kinetic energy of the rotating capsule could produce more melting
than electrical heating? Rather than building bespoke swivelling robotic mounts
to rotate and tilt the masers it might be possible to use modified mounts from
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500 swiveling light, known for blurring the distinction between theatre
lighting and disco lighting. Alternatively </span>commercially available ‘go to’ telescopes currently marketed to amateur
astronomers could be used. The controlling software would need to be replaced by a programme
that enabled the masers to overlap their beams, although the MAC 500s can already do this. At a later stage controlling
signals might be piggy-backed onto the maser beams to control movable steering
fins on the non-rotating sections. The effects of creating the 2.45 GHz
frequency from constructive interference from masers of different frequencies
could be compared with the effects of creating the 2.45 GHz frequency from </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">interference fringes in
overlapping plane waves in beams of the same frequency. Tunable masers would be
useful for this research.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">4) At this stage it would
become necessary to move out of the laboratory and start experimenting on
glaciers or other areas of permanent ice. The transparency of ice to the
selected maser frequencies would be of interest. Impurities in the ice could
affect its transparency to maser beams. With the re-invention of masers by the
National Physical Laboratory in 2012 the increased portability of the devices
now means that it will be possible for scaled up versions to be transported to
glaciers and ice-fields. Universities or research instructions within easy
reach of such areas would be at an advantage. Ideally it would be possible to
select a glacier close to a road. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The personnel involved at this stage would be
scientists interested in exploring glaciers and subglacial lakes, working in
collaboration with electrical and mechanical engineers specialising in
microwave masers, microwave radio conversion to power, remote device control,
telemetry and pressure resistant submersible remotely operated vehicles. As the
capsule was scaled up to become a relatively large device operating at some
distance from the surface, the pointing accuracy of the maser beams would
become more important. The expertise of engineers who build and operate radio
telescopes might be needed. Initially, glaciologists might be content to deliver small probes on a one way journey to fluvial channels under the glacier.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">5) If it proved possible to
power and control a capsule within a glacier as well as melting areas of ice
adjacent to it, some move towards using this technique to reach subglacial
lakes would take place. Before committing to the construction of a by now
technologically advanced and expensive device the final experimental step could be to combine
a microwave beam fed into a metal drill string, in ice, with another beam directed
from some distance away by a maser mounted on a tilting mechanism able to
direct the beam to the drill tip. An estimation of the amount of ice melting
could be made by measuring the resistance to downward pressure from the drill
string or pumped fluids. This would also be an opportunity to experiment with fitting an outer sleeve to the drill tip to test different compounds designed to heat up in response to the various harmonic frequencies produced by constructive interference. Even after laboratory tests it would be time to test what actually occurred beneath hundreds of meters of ice. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">6) The final all-up test of
the system would take place above a subglacial lake. Perhaps the recently
discovered lakes in </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Greenland</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> would be the initial target, but the lakes in </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Antarctica</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> would be the eventual goal. If these lakes have remained isolated from
the outside environments for thousands of years they could be the closest thing
in biology to exploring another planet. It is unlikely that the power
requirements of such an exploration can be reliably calculated at present.
However it can be expected that large amounts of electrical power would be
needed for the scaled-up masers delivered to the Antarctic exploration mission.
The 24 hours of daylight available in the Antarctic summer suggest that photo
voltaic panels might be useful, especially if they formed the walls of
buildings. As the Antarctic is a notoriously windy continent wind powered
generators might be used. Delivering this equipment to an Antarctic site would
be a challenge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">7) The long term exploration
of </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Antarctica</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> would generally benefit from the development of a
long distance vertical and take of and landing (VTOL) aircraft. No military power has ever
found the need to combine long range with VTOL capability. It would need the
combined resources of an international consortium of scientific Antarctic
exploring institutions to fund, design and build such a craft. The ability to
fly directly from </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">South
America</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Africa</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">,
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Australia</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> or </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">New Zealand</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> and land vertically at any site in </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Antarctica</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> would benefit many projects. Perhaps it could take the form of a
hot-air airship powered by turbines with their exhaust venting into an
envelope. It would be capable of going forward with some speed as well as
landing and taking off vertically. But that would be another project. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>Microwave Assisted Polar Subglacial Exploration Capsule</b>.</span></span></h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>MAPSEC returning</b>.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Original Post </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://jstockton700.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/masers-on-ice.html" target="_blank">http://jstockton700.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/masers-on-ice.html</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Constructive interference Wikipedia </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation)" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation)</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ice in microwave ovens - the naked scientist </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Wave%20properties/Wave%20properties/text/Microwave_ovens/index.html">http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Wave%20properties/Wave%20properties/text/Microwave_ovens/index.html</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Interference from same frequency beams</b>.</span></td></tr>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-65596018362168454152013-08-19T20:22:00.000+01:002016-10-22T20:31:57.395+01:00scans<br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMs0JPIG7pMv2N5NfZUWTOq_AFT7c3EPAJ2UxT2Ny4ny-k1ug1wDypurhzwL-_7PdADfwL1Dk2IzSuLr6nmbdbKHEXsDUbw-e6g8Uu_p3us7mKhsZjYSBVVUHJ63tz3WufShlmTLsU8g/s1600/Scans+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMs0JPIG7pMv2N5NfZUWTOq_AFT7c3EPAJ2UxT2Ny4ny-k1ug1wDypurhzwL-_7PdADfwL1Dk2IzSuLr6nmbdbKHEXsDUbw-e6g8Uu_p3us7mKhsZjYSBVVUHJ63tz3WufShlmTLsU8g/s400/Scans+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The scanner is the most used peripheral that is connected to my
computer. Although it is designed to copy documents it is perfectly useable as
a kind of flat-bed camera that can record three dimensional objects. My artwork
consists of prints that are the result of scanning collages of found objects
which are combined into a semi-abstract version of landscape pictures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes I scan individual objects before I can find a use for them. I am
motivated by a sense of curiosity as to what their image will look like after
it has been recorded by the process. I tend to collect more items than I have
an immediate use for, and I like to know what they will look like when I take
them out of storage and use them. It is not always possible to imagine this. The
travelling perspective of a scanner produces an image that is subtly more like
a map than a photograph. Also, copiers and scanners tend to read distance as
darkness and objects that are scanned often have a black background that is
similar to photograms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anyone who learnt photography in the pre-digital age probably
started by producing photograms. These pictures were used to introduce the
concept of controlling exposure and processing by placing objects on light
sensitive paper under an enlarger and then </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-IYcMNVZnaHFXBEdxxKeXulnqoyS9-RtKCW5vSg4SlWoXFdaiuch-aet885uK7nm2oYUKnhRw8nykHQLQV6w6b6WR-b9edv6lkfJg8PCh3M_YOjFb6BCuCrXfIWHI2ORge3OiCW0QA/s1600/PHOTOGRAM+wine+glasses+BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-IYcMNVZnaHFXBEdxxKeXulnqoyS9-RtKCW5vSg4SlWoXFdaiuch-aet885uK7nm2oYUKnhRw8nykHQLQV6w6b6WR-b9edv6lkfJg8PCh3M_YOjFb6BCuCrXfIWHI2ORge3OiCW0QA/s200/PHOTOGRAM+wine+glasses+BW.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">switching it on for about 45 seconds
to create a negative shadow picture. After</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">processing, the photographic paper
has white silhouettes of the objects which appear to float in an undefined
black space, created where light has struck the photographic emulsion. These
photograms were an important introduction to the old-fashioned craft of
chemical photography. Most photographers who learnt this process quickly forgot
the act of making photograms when they moved on to more ‘serious’ photography.
However, for a few decades at the start of the 20th century, these images were
held in <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-kwuLv3Uzkchnkt3FlwGczLETp7P9Wjiy_0lpCoE-agGUlGu2xYhgq-XXiKo0TsT_Y9b87O2bwS5LSqZeEuBOOZvaPIM-vW9B27cK3_oKpSK93HUdW4huhTgX569hNAevvsOZb4Nug/s1600/Alvin+Langdon+Coburn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-kwuLv3Uzkchnkt3FlwGczLETp7P9Wjiy_0lpCoE-agGUlGu2xYhgq-XXiKo0TsT_Y9b87O2bwS5LSqZeEuBOOZvaPIM-vW9B27cK3_oKpSK93HUdW4huhTgX569hNAevvsOZb4Nug/s200/Alvin+Langdon+Coburn.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>
some regard by avant-garde artists who respected them as an important
part of the modernist art project. Alvin Langdon Coburn, Moholy-Nagy and Man
Ray all experimented with what Gyorgy Kepes referred to as “photo-drawings”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If used in a
certain way, the modern digital scanner can produce images that are the modern
equivalent of 1920s photograms. By scanning three dimensional objects instead
of documents, images are created which can echo some of the elemental feeling
of </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXxx1U-sMJMCfCr9UaVvy0-s4y_43i6-kwxKg66DIQz2m18AxP-FLbQpLXK_FbsIowLjc_H36si1PsCVHiCv-ADVdkD4zyXMeC8Mt_mLy38NNRd8J4YV00wsY54D8wmMG1ToS_4w_Mw/s1600/Brown+paper+BW+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXxx1U-sMJMCfCr9UaVvy0-s4y_43i6-kwxKg66DIQz2m18AxP-FLbQpLXK_FbsIowLjc_H36si1PsCVHiCv-ADVdkD4zyXMeC8Mt_mLy38NNRd8J4YV00wsY54D8wmMG1ToS_4w_Mw/s200/Brown+paper+BW+small.jpg" width="145" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">photograms. The scanning process removes ordinary objects from their usual
context. The resultant images relate to the tendency of science to render
nature as uncanny.Science uses technology to reveal aspects of nature that are
usually invisible. I use digital editing to discover qualities of my scanned
images not seen in the original objects. I have collected some of these
pictures in this book. Scanning can produce a neo-modernist beauty.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1M_4WYoZEtiWHjpHcagk2gi9EpTOaRHPnZrvdZkWA3XHk-WdkNiMQwG4yQ7mj3u4Eu7yV12upgz3v15UZNpQFb2n4n58T2ZpBiGgEaiCPxZY5ud6vScAAM-DCDAzXWx3b-f_rlQE-fg/s1600/SCANS+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1M_4WYoZEtiWHjpHcagk2gi9EpTOaRHPnZrvdZkWA3XHk-WdkNiMQwG4yQ7mj3u4Eu7yV12upgz3v15UZNpQFb2n4n58T2ZpBiGgEaiCPxZY5ud6vScAAM-DCDAzXWx3b-f_rlQE-fg/s640/SCANS+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/2998927/8958e462b363901548867d063bd567cffb87f2bd">http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/2998927/8958e462b363901548867d063bd567cffb87f2bd</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 19px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>COMING SOON</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghz_edGUDKQaEi1R52MVY2BbXfKspEPETdtpvLc58Z4KBGxOyi7mCsWCbMSSBFbHHudGAYs3Lfoi0f3DWoBHTtKhk_0cZoHv1N_HFPrbyO6TV2OLx5mpNZm9ohPXxAm1rMG9x1e-JKCQ/s1600/FAUXSCAPE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghz_edGUDKQaEi1R52MVY2BbXfKspEPETdtpvLc58Z4KBGxOyi7mCsWCbMSSBFbHHudGAYs3Lfoi0f3DWoBHTtKhk_0cZoHv1N_HFPrbyO6TV2OLx5mpNZm9ohPXxAm1rMG9x1e-JKCQ/s1600/FAUXSCAPE.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-76486854920770530142013-07-19T03:43:00.000+01:002015-12-20T19:45:37.826+00:00Pale Blue Dot<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Today we can be fascinated by the prospect of seeing Earth from such a distance that it can be depicted by just a few pixels. The 'blue dot' image is a radical and though provoking summation of our planet, but t</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">here is an history behind the picture which can be traced back to an event 47 years ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://thedaytheearthsmiled.com/info.php"><span style="font-size: large;">http://thedaytheearthsmiled.com/info.php</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Picture of the Century.</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In November 1966 a picture of
the moon was returned to Earth by radio transmission. The picture quickly
became known as ‘The Picture of the Century’. The photograph was taken by the
Lunar Orbiter 2 spacecraft which had been placed in a low orbit around the
Moon. Its mission was to obtain a series
of photographs of possible landing sites for Apollo astronauts. Although this
picture is no longer famous, several versions of the photograph have become cultural
icons reflecting and even changing our feelings about the Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5cK4PFQTj3QKKBTRCJf8aE6aRzAb-6clgw7itsl_6SBLeECkVV54WATRQOkXObng8VOOGjC-EkouELaUKFGH3t32SCqB1WUQGkrJmFhnYeh-tURKMdKmR7lQmp5QP-OWQY6PBOC_8DQ/s1241/Picture+of+the+Century.tif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="608" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;">Front page story - Daily Mail - Thursday 1st December 1966</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The 1966 Picture of the Century appealed to the popular imagination because it was different from previous telescopic photographs of
the moon. The oblique angle and 28 mile altitude of the viewpoint created a
spectacular impression of what it might be like to 'fly’ over the surface of
the moon. Unlike views from Earth it did not have the flattened look characteristic
of pictures taken through telescopes. It was a new picture of a landscape that
was very ancient. The brilliantly light lunar scene resembles an aerial view of
the high deserts or the <st1:place>Himalaya</st1:place> on Earth, but the airless black sky beyond the
horizon makes the landscape both familiar and alien. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When Galileo first pointed a rudimentary telescope at the Moon he was the first person to see craters there. He was surprised and others were dismayed. His discovery undermined a medieval belief in the harmony of the spheres. Over the years imaginative pictures of
the Moon, such as those of Chesley Bonstell in the 1940s, had not fully
prepared the public for this image of day turned into night. The 'Picture of the Century' is like vision
from a dream of death. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Two months later three
American astronauts died in an oxygen fire during a launch rehearsal at the
Kennedy Space Centre. Three months later Vladimir Komarov was killed
after a parachute failure on the first Soviet Soyuz capsule to be flown in
space. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The race to the Moon was a product of the cold war and astronauts were
prepared to accept risks similar to those of aerial combat. Alexey Leonov is reputed to have had a suicide pill available to him to use in case of the first space walk outside a voskhod capsule ended with him unable to return to the inflatable airlock. The technology of
spaceflight was derived from intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Lunar Orbiter
2 spacecraft had a photographic system derived from reconnaissance aircraft.
Unlike the electronic videcon cameras on the earlier Mariner probes to Mars,
the Lunar Orbiters were equipped with a 70mm film camera and on-board chemical
processing system which delivered the film to an electronic scanner. The output from the scanner was then relayed back to receiving stations on Earth.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDeDbJHbyPAPuBwCm979C0WwzG7G_vCtTsP_-oD95qLEL0qka39xTtez0HzdTXmCqvDWr6vOjborL0ra6fPqdzDtXG9HBylqvnPkg-l1oeriESL9qT7h0T4sgYA9jnM4ZOf2cmrSJxg/s1600/NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDeDbJHbyPAPuBwCm979C0WwzG7G_vCtTsP_-oD95qLEL0qka39xTtez0HzdTXmCqvDWr6vOjborL0ra6fPqdzDtXG9HBylqvnPkg-l1oeriESL9qT7h0T4sgYA9jnM4ZOf2cmrSJxg/s1600/NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Earthrise.</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The race to the moon
continued and despite the initial excitement caused by 'The Picture of the
Century' it faded from public attention. Two years later the Apollo 8 mission
sent a three man crew into Lunar orbit. Frank Borman, James Lovell and William
Anders became the first humans to travel the 240.000 miles to the moon and see
its far side from orbit. the Apollo astronauts risked being stranded in space by engine failure, deprived
of air by technical failure, and exposure to radiation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As well as practising manoeuvres for a full lunar
landing, the crew exposed many rolls of 120 format film, continuing the work of
the unmanned Lunar Orbiters. One particular picture became more famous than The
Picture of the Century. On </span><st1:date day="24" month="12" style="font-family: inherit;" year="1968"><span style="font-size: large;">24</span><span style="font-size: 20px;">th</span><span style="font-size: large;"> December 1968</span></st1:date><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> the crew of Apollo 8 saw the Earth rising above the
horizon of the moon and made a number of exposures with their modified hand-held
</span><span style="font-size: large;">Hasselblad</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> cameras. The picture that became know as </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Earthrise</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">soon acquired a
cultural significance that had not been anticipated.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">During the Century leading up to the first landing on the moon, attention had understandably been focused on the outward view from the Earth. National Geographic magazine printed photographs of the moon in its January 1953 edition featuring the Mount Palomar </span><span style="font-size: large;">telescope. Whereas these pictures were mostly vertical views of the moons surface, in the 1966 Picture of the Century the horizon to appears within the frame. In 1968 the Apollo 8 Earthrise picture showed our planet to as seen from a point above the moon. In the terminology of cinema editing it is like a reverse-field shot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The almost colourless and airless foreground of the moon provides a very stark contrast with the atmosphere of the Earth. Aesthetically the picture satisfies definitions of beauty dating back to ancient Greece. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Plato would have regarded the Earthrise picture as evidence of the concept of hidden geometries behind the everyday appearance of reality and beauty in particular. The seemingly random distribution of clouds constrained by the circle of the globe could be said to support he idea that the beautiful aspects of existence depended on their degree of concord with a hidden realm of celestial harmony. Aristotle would have been interested in the 'fitness for purpose' of the Earth. The fact that it is the abode of all known life would have qualified our planet in those terms. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Jumping forward to the 17th century Edmund Burke, in the Age of Enlightenment, would have regarded the Earthrise picture as a supreme of example of the sense of awe created by the sublime. The foreground of the lifeless Moon with the Earth hovering uncertainly in the vacuum of space is a terrifying image while being beautiful at the same time. Perhaps the circumstances of the taking of the photograph contributes to the sense of danger in the image. Astronauts venturing to the Moon have to take all their air with them. The possibility of death that is implicit within our understanding of the picture only adds to the sense of pleasure when viewing it from a position of safety. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">From the viewpoint of 20th century photography the Earthrise satisfies the important criteria. Susan Sontag wrote in the chapter 'the Heroism of Vision' in her book 'On Photography':</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The history of photography can be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives: beautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth-telling, which is measured not only by a notion of value-free truth, a legacy from the sciences, but by a </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">moralized</span><span style="font-size: large;"> ideal of truth-telling, adapted from nineteenth-century literary models and from the (then) new profession of independent journalism."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Earthrise picture is a superb photograph because it has a beauty that is purely photographic and it is open to a moral interpretation about the goodness of nature. The picture would not be convincing as a painting, it works because </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">photography eliminates the distance between object and image. The medium of photography is well suited to mass reproduction in books and magazines and the Earthrise picture spread this way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88jrZjsNHPc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88jrZjsNHPc</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> Historical Context</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Apollo 8 Earthrise
photograph coincided with a period of political turmoil created by political
assassination, civil unrest and escalating involvement in the Vietnam War. The
American high intensity ‘arclight’
bombing, combined with the use of chemical defoliant sprays to remove
vegetation cover for the North Vietnamese forces was creating images of
destruction that overlapped with the growing awareness of industrial pollution.
At the peak of bombing, the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> was dropping as 800 tons of bombs every day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Despite warnings from the
manufacturer Du</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Pont</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">, the Pentagon authorised the use of the defoliant that
could only be manufactured in the quantities they needed with the contaminant
dioxin. The chemical, codenamed ‘Agent Orange’, was intended to deny the Vietcong
fighters the advantage of a jungle hiding-place but the resulting collateral
damage of contamination produced illness and birth defects in the Vietnamese civilian
population reminiscent of the Minamata </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">mercury poisoning fiasco in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: inherit;"><st1:place><span style="font-size: large;">Japan</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> a decade earlier. Anti Vietnam War protests began to
coalesce with growing concern over pollution that was emerging on a globaly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In the 19<sup>th</sup>
Century industrial pollution of air and water had been considered to be a local
problem that could be solved by dilution and dissipation. Overcrowded
communities were as much a cause of disease as proximity to the industrial
processes in which they worked. At the time of the earthrise photograph the implications of Rachel Carson's book 'Silent Spring' were only just being understood. The effluvia of the 19th century industry and slums were essentially biological. They only needed effective biological treatment to be made harmless. Carson was the first successful communicator to understand that nature could not 'digest' the new invisible chemical pollution created by new industrial processes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In the first half of the 20th century it was assumed that dilution through dispersal would be the answer to problems caused by chemical pollutants. The testing of atomic bombs, and from 1953 hydrogen bombs, made explicit the tacit knowledge that the atmosphere was finite. Because the hydrogen bomb is roughly 1000 time as as powerful as an atomic bomb, the convection currents from these explosions would punch a hole through to the stratosphere. Once caught by high velocity winds radio-active particles would be dispersed around the globe. In a sense these tests were like a very dangerous experiment in global atmospheric circulation. It is widely believed that these tests resulted in multiple deaths around the world. Even today the long term isotopes from the hydrogen bomb tests are present in the tissue of every living thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Such was the strength of the radiation, contamination </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">from individual atmospheric (above ground) explosions could be tracked. The progress of radio-active clouds was reported day by day in the media. In 1962 the atmospheric test ban brought most of these occurrences to an end, but the globally distributed </span><span style="font-size: large;">and accumulated radiation illustrated that the technological achievements of humankind had overreached themselves to the point where the finite nature of the atmosphere could not be ignored. Radio-active fallout showed that our atmosphere is finite and that dilution of a pollutant can not be guaranteed to make it less dangerous. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA1JMwtYPAz2TKvzd-NKZ6eCXm0N3Jx7RlAtDbNP7pnGuBBGTO-D_kCv2ssakcPudmf_RxxxACEVpPRtEIHaAWyQan2sIsNYvccp_eCvqdP4GU0RvC3FlEwhwxdxWQZJE2jOqFC9Ii_w/s1600/md-fall-1968-1010-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA1JMwtYPAz2TKvzd-NKZ6eCXm0N3Jx7RlAtDbNP7pnGuBBGTO-D_kCv2ssakcPudmf_RxxxACEVpPRtEIHaAWyQan2sIsNYvccp_eCvqdP4GU0RvC3FlEwhwxdxWQZJE2jOqFC9Ii_w/s1600/md-fall-1968-1010-cover.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Counter Culture.</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">After the drama of the Apollo 8 mission had subsided this</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Earthrise</span><span style="font-size: large;"> photograph was reproduced increasingly in the context of the growing environmental movement, usually referred to as ecology in the terminology of the time. In 1968 </span><span style="font-size: large;">Stewart Brand who started the 'Whole Earth Catalog' had already used a weather satellite derived picture of the Earth on the cover of his influential publication. Brand had campaigned for two years to persuade NASA to release an image of the globe of the earth believing it could function as a catalyst for social change. The catalog was intended to help the millions young American who were experimenting with communal living based on self-sufficiency. Since the time of Thoreau there had been an undercurrent of resistance to industrialisation and a belief in self-sufficiency.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The role of the Apollo
project in re-conceptualising our relationship to nature was already being acknowledged
by the time Apollo 11 was on the Moon. The September 25</span><sup style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> edition of
Time magazine allowed itself some speculation as to the longer term meaning of
the project. </span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>To
some, Apollo 11’s mission to the moon means hope for a less anthropocentric
view of man and a new perspective on the human condition. “I think if we can get
far away from ourselves, we should be able to look back down here and see how
tiny the earth is,” said Rita Moore, an <st1:city><st1:place>Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city> secretary. “Maybe we’ll be able to see now
that we are all on a small planet and we ought to be working together.” Said
famed biochemist Isaac Asimov: “It will teach us to be humble. The earth is a
small body, a tiny thing lost in a vast universe.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Time Magazine – <st1:date day="25" month="7" year="1969">July 25<sup>th</sup>
1969</st1:date></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In the same issue is an item about husband of Joan Baez, David Harris, being arrested for 'draft dodging' and a review
of the film ‘Easy Rider'. The caption to the iconic publicity picture reads "A film about two nobodies, directed by a weirdo". The actual review is a little more appreciative. The film was an attempt to produce a counter-cultural film from within the Hollywood system. Now considered to be a classic road movie, the three characters undertake a journey from Los Angeles to New Orleans on motorcycles. Like most quest narratives the two characters are in search of psychological fulfilment, an essentially literary idea that gives rise to an authorial critique of society. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">At the start of their journey the two bikers symbolically discard their watches. On their way a they meet a fictionalised representation of the hippy communes that were attempting to find a new way of life. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Like Thoreau, the characters in Easy Rider are seeking access to a </span><span style="font-size: large;">world hidden by materialism. Thoreau wanted to see the divine in nature without the interference of an intervening dogma. All the characters in easy rider need freedom from hegemony, but the story ends in death and fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A more radical use of the road movie genre is 'Two- Lane Black top, made in 1971 by Monty Hellman. Using </span><span style="font-size: large;">a kind of </span><span style="font-size: large;">Brechtian</span><span style="font-size: large;"> distantiation, the three main characters are “GTO”, “The Driver” and
“The Girl”. The cars that appear in the film are given equal billing in the
credits. Nominally a story about two men who gain a living by drag-racing. The characters are rootless and in their conversation almost as mechanical in their car. Like the biker in 'Easy rider* they are detached from time. On arrival at a small town where nothing is open yet, 'The Driver' states "It must be Sunday."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The One could question whether the men
own the car or do the car actually own the men? Is everyone in the
industrialised world a prisoner of technology? As
the tension to the final race builds, we see ‘our’ car set off from a rear seat
perspective, but it is the film that crashes. </span><span style="font-size: large;">In a surprising twist to the-then
fashionable freeze frame ending, the film ends when a reel stops in a projector with the lamp
still on full power. The frame visibly blisters, burns and melts away, drawing a parallel between the mechanics behind the illusion of film and the mechanics of the cars. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Both films end in
fire, Easy Rider ends with death at the hands of rednecks and Two- Lane Blacktop
ends with the film itself apparently burning. Realistically they can have no other ends because the stories are 'unmapping' narratives. It is this aspect of the films that makes them more subversive than the events depicted. Unmapping was defined by Richard Philips in his book "Mapping Men and Empire - A geography of adventure":</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"To unmap literally is to denaturalise geography, hence to undermine the world views that rest upon it. Metaphorically, unmapping means denaturalising more abstract constructs, such as race and gender, which are mapped in imaginative geography. Unmapping is a critical project, a form of resistance to received or mapped world views."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSYY-zJ6U6P45LLiwLnZtl4jNl3W8IZ_XylWRD4Nt-FXlWZeoH5AddM78XghrTBDBm7SvMqCeu4ZL06iOtlP0hjKw0zfVn5M3WDIDFsIdggPPbWYcxgPIBN8Q3BFhIHE4jviMUgqvoA/s1600/7thDecember+1972+Apollo+17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSYY-zJ6U6P45LLiwLnZtl4jNl3W8IZ_XylWRD4Nt-FXlWZeoH5AddM78XghrTBDBm7SvMqCeu4ZL06iOtlP0hjKw0zfVn5M3WDIDFsIdggPPbWYcxgPIBN8Q3BFhIHE4jviMUgqvoA/s1600/7thDecember+1972+Apollo+17.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Blue Marble</span></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The most reproduced picture of the Earth, the 'blue marble' photograph was taken on the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Apollo 17 'blue marble' picture can be understood as an unmapping image in which the hubris of the geographies of dominant culture is exposed. Even the greatest constructions of civilisation are not visible. The most obvious feature is the life-giving atmosphere. The ocean of air </span><span style="font-size: large;">which generations have taken for granted. The first time its continuation was doubted was just </span><span style="font-size: large;">before the testing of the first atomic bomb when there was briefly a suggestion that it might ignite the atmosphere. Fortunately this turned out to be impossible.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The 'blue marble' picture reminds us that our atmosphere is life. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Vladimir Kamarov died trying to return to our ocean of air. The Apollo fire resulted from an attempt to substitute pure oxygen for a natural atmosphere. The biosphere 2 project attempted to create a sealed artificial environment in which the functioning of the biosphere would be replicated. It failed because the designers failed to appreciate the intricacies of relationship between the soil and the atmosphere. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXwAHy_Oh-HxIXMMoXya4LLoYb5yV75JtMPX95Ew4A5l_JsZb_7BM40RWqmNpi7quvwBEIqDfXxac0_alTnZWJ1usVTZbFIQ7dhDVnxYfgMCRMuk_N8ar2UBLPu2eyIQaGFab-eL3QA/s1600/Blue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXwAHy_Oh-HxIXMMoXya4LLoYb5yV75JtMPX95Ew4A5l_JsZb_7BM40RWqmNpi7quvwBEIqDfXxac0_alTnZWJ1usVTZbFIQ7dhDVnxYfgMCRMuk_N8ar2UBLPu2eyIQaGFab-eL3QA/s1600/Blue.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue marble picture used in a poster from April 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">The earth
photographs recalibrate the scale of our awareness of nature, but what has made the 'Blue Marble' the most popular and reproduced of the the photographs? Unlike the Apollo 8 Earthrise picture which was taken serendipitously, the Apollo 17 mission planners scheduled the first picture of the globe fully in daylight. The astronauts were at a relatively close distance of 28,000 miles which results in a more rounded appearance to the Earth. For Gaston Bachelard, author of the 1958 book 'The Poetics of Space' roundness was the best symbol for a living being. He imagined a bird to be like a ball:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"> "..as a centralisation of life guarded on every side, enclosed in a live ball, and consequently, at the maximum of its unity."</span></blockquote>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEsVmepXBYIYzcLAdwV402PL1XTO2lrfBAxDzOzXWKM871bLWtMPcfbokh54J68oPZCKmF2WfnjLkvVvVnLKm68J39FrWDGerLM2_5qvllj6fth2qEkOxr9WdA5eU2BRhCIUKNYQ4eeg/s1600/BBC+The+Forum.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apollo 17 picture still use as an illustration 42 years later.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/PaleBlueDot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/PaleBlueDot.jpg" height="400" width="353" /></a></div>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Pale Blue Dot</span></h4>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">The P</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">ale Blue dot
picture of Earth was instigated by Carl Sagan who, like Stewart Brand 24 years previously, requested that NASA</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">create an image of the earth, but this time from the Voyager 1 spacecraft which had been exploring the outer planets since 1977. The plan was to </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">point the Voyager 1 cameras towards the Sun. On the </span><span style="font-size: large;">14</span><sup>th</sup><span style="font-size: large;"> February 1990 Voyager 1, then 6 billion </span><span style="font-size: large;">kms</span><span style="font-size: large;">
from Earth, took the so-called family portrait sequence of photographs
including Jupiter, Earth, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and the Sun. Pluto was too
faint and Mercury was lost in the glare of the Sun. Buried in the data there is
an indication that the cameras detected our moon, but it does not appear in any
picture produced. From the perspective of the edge of our solar system the moon
and the earth merge into one dot. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The image is literally the size of a full stop but the planet it depicts has contained everything we have ever known. It is the site of all our feelings and those of our ancestors. Sagan first suggested the blue dot image in 1981 because he felt that it would be a poetic statement about the earth. Since the first Earthrise picture captured the public imagination James Lovelock had developed the gaia hypothesis of a self regulating global climate that was endangered by human emissions of greenhouse gasses. Carl Sagan once shared an office with James Lovelock and new of his work. </span><span style="font-size: large;">After taking the pale blue do</span><span style="font-size: large;">t picture, the Videcon camera</span><span style="font-size: large;"> on Voyager was finally switched off
to conserve power. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Richard Truly who had authorised these last Voyager pictures left NASA and went on to lead the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 both continue to send signals from the edge of the solar system and may have entered the realm of interstellar space. </span></div>
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<a href="http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79803/earth_night_rotate_lrg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79803/earth_night_rotate_lrg.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Black Marble</span></h4>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">In 2012 a new image of the Earth at night was synthesised from data returned by the Suomi NPP satellite. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Black Marble image of the world is a more modern version of the Blue Marble picture, but now made from multiple views of the night side of Earth, stitched together with computer a programme. It is also similar to the original Picture of the Century as it is synthesised from viewpoint of automatic satellites. All natural features apart from the outlines of land masses have been removed from the globe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Multiple passes of the satellite reveal the largely artificial light created by human activity.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">The areas of light represent artificial illumination created by humans. The black areas are where nature predominates or where humans do not dominate the landscape, or they cannot afford electricity.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">The Black marble
picture is reminiscent of a pre-CCT/MRI model of the human brain circulation. Before modern imaging techniques the only way to create a model the blood supply injection the blood vessels of a postmortem brain with resin, before
dissolving the biological tissue with acid. Today a similar model of a living
brain could be made with a combination of CCT/MRI derived data and a 3D
printer. The Black marble picture shows the Earth mostly with nature removed leaving</span><span style="font-size: large;"> the skeleton of energy consumption that is the backbone of the modern global economy. This data has been further developed into a fascinating animation video called 'Welcome to the Anthropocene' produced at the International Geosphere and Biosphere Project.The narrated animation tells the story of how the influence of human activity is now so great we are living in a time that could be regarded as a new geological age.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/39048998">http://vimeo.com/39048998</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">From 1966 when the 'Picture of the Century' made to 1990 when 'Pale Blue Dot' was sent from Voyager 1, there was a revolution in our understanding of the status of our atmosphere. In 1966 invisible poisons in the air were a major concern, but by 1990 the emphasis had moved to the potential for damage caused by global warming created by greenhouse gasses. An unintended consequence of space exploration has been an increased awareness how precious but fragile the Earth is. Before the Space Age the 'globe' was a more abstract concept that did not enter into policy. While discrete geographies were considered, the most common image of the Earth was a political map with just the polar regions shown as unpopulated areas. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Pictures of the Earth from space have made our planet seem more real. The 'unmapping' images from space have alerted us to the concrete realities that cannot be ignored. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In her 1965 essay, 'One culture and the new sensibility' Susan Sontag was strangely sanguine about "the clean automated technology that is coming into being in the second half of the 20th century." Her insight into the possibilities of transformation through technology were more prescient. She argued that both the distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture and between art and science would disappear under the influence of technology. Based on the belief that technology changes the way people think by changing the way they experience Sontag pointed to a rather nebulous list of cultural practitioners who would create a "new social alignment."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Today, the Internet and the creative potential of computers could be seen as a realisation of that prediction. The 'Welcome to the Anthopocene' animated video could not be made without a computer. More importantly, the way in which the piece is made, from data generated by a satellite, suggests that it belongs to a new cultural form. The function of the video is to make a narrative from normally invisible phenomena. The form follows from that need. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6spax9FAwJByBV2zsTPSEYOGOYpiQrVWX7WQFz9L1Jzd2amB3x-jW0H2OsJ3pklMJp4fJ9OH1mGnTXEhUWs1iKBclWvnftMGWnX8EzHzYelOEHY0YqQ6q6HSfKF37Wh-DtheIIi5z6g/s1600/British+Gas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6spax9FAwJByBV2zsTPSEYOGOYpiQrVWX7WQFz9L1Jzd2amB3x-jW0H2OsJ3pklMJp4fJ9OH1mGnTXEhUWs1iKBclWvnftMGWnX8EzHzYelOEHY0YqQ6q6HSfKF37Wh-DtheIIi5z6g/s1600/British+Gas.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">It may be possible to exagerate the impact these images have had. While the successive images of Earth from space have been credited with changing our awareness of the environmental problems it faces, that is not always true. This cartoon image of self-satisfied consumers occupying their own lonely planet may be a rather cynical re-working of the Earthrise/Blue Marble pictures, but it does illustrate how much these images have been incorporated into our culture.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">John Stockton.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">19th July 2013.</span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
</h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/articles/lunar-orbiter-image-recovery-project-update/">http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/articles/lunar-orbiter-image-recovery-project-update/</a></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/starfishandapollo-1962/">http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/starfishandapollo-1962/</a></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-22516703774675809792013-07-16T11:17:00.000+01:002016-08-24T14:43:22.439+01:00Masers on Ice<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Potentially, nuclear powered masers could send a probe many kilometres through ice to putative oceans on Europa and Callisto.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTwjTbtQggdmiSnP-QgX1Fyg7M6V5NbAg4yPEjdYF6p0ICP-hcdsSx-dCPvEB2ngEe2Z8hLSlcRLC3cSgtBve6V5R7lRCd1zVtoP65wDn4JSg9k0SyYi0RnlwwCT1vzNIZzS8DixM0fw/s1600/MAPSEC+4small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTwjTbtQggdmiSnP-QgX1Fyg7M6V5NbAg4yPEjdYF6p0ICP-hcdsSx-dCPvEB2ngEe2Z8hLSlcRLC3cSgtBve6V5R7lRCd1zVtoP65wDn4JSg9k0SyYi0RnlwwCT1vzNIZzS8DixM0fw/s320/MAPSEC+4small.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The recent re-development of masers at the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K. has an interesting implication for the exploration of subglacial lakes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The recent failure of the
drilling expedition that was attempting to sample the waters of the subglacial
<st1:place><st1:placetype>Lake</st1:placetype> <st1:placename>Ellsworth</st1:placename></st1:place> in the Antarctic illustrates the difficulty of such an operation</span><span style="font-size: large;">. Despite huge efforts by the British Antarctic Survey team, the process of drilling through 1 km</span><span style="font-size: large;"> of ice was halted by technical problems. Although the project is in abeyance, there are strong intellectual incentives to make further efforts to penetrate the ice cover of the lake and explore what lies within.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since the existence of subglacial lakes was first predicted by Peter </span><span style="font-size: large;">Kropotkin at the end of the 19th Century almost 400 of these bodies of fresh water have been discovered underneath ice. It is a combination of geothermal heating and pressure from the overlying ice that is believed to enable these fresh water lakes to exist, even in Antarctica. A substantial international research programme has identified three particular subglacial lakes that are of special interest as the sequestered water they contain may have remained isolated from the outside environment for many thousands of years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lake Ellsworth, Lake Vostok and Lake Whillans are the subject of drilling explorations as they could contain forms of life never seen before. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Layered sediments on the lake beds should also provide an historical record of regional or global environmental changes and events. Whereas Lake Whillans is believed to be part of an ice stream flowing into the Ross ice shelf, Lake Ellsworth and Lake Vostok are believed to contain ecosystems that have remained isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years. Studying a previously unknown ecosystem on Earth is interesting enough, but there is a another reason to explore these special places. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Just as physics enabled Kropotkin and later A. Zotikov </span> <span style="font-size: large;">to predict the existence of subglacial lakes, the possibility of oceans underneath the icy surfaces of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Callisto have been postulated.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> A study of life forms in terrestrial subglacial lakes could help in the search for life on these distant moons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Soon after the discovery of Lake Ellsworth in in 1996 British scientists started planning an expedition that would answer the question as to whether there was a lower limit to the amount of light, temperature and nutrient levels that would support life. Previously, the so called 'black smokers' on the mid ocean ridges were the only known sites where life existed without light. These mini-volcanoes, expelling super heated water laced with a rich soup of chemicals, are very different from the very cold and nutrient poor depths of subglacial lakes. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Prompted by this question about the limits of life, a 16 year project evolved into an expedition equipped with a hot water drill designed to provide a borehole wide enough to insert a sampling probe into the lake. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To help with sterilisation and to withstand high pressure the device was made with titanium. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The torpedo like sampling probe was made at the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton under the aegis of the National Environmental Research Council. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> The five-metre-long sampling probe was to enter the lake, take 24 separate water samples and retrieve a lake bed sediment core. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The decision to use hot water
to melt the ice was an obvious choice. The scheme was devised to prevent
uncontrolled flows of water from the lake by creating a sump reservoir of water
300 meters below the ice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The pressure from the overburden of ice keeps the subglacial lake liquid, like the layer of water that forms under the blade of an ice skate. It was realised quite early that this same pressure could cause water to violently unwell from the drilled hole at the moment of penetration of the lake. If this happened it would have been similar to the oil 'gushers' that used to occur in Texas. To avoid this t</span><span style="font-size: large;">he plan was to create a hot water cavity and use a submerged pump to balance the
pressure from the lake. Stopping any net movement of water between the lake and the surface would </span><span style="font-size: large;">minimise the possibility of
contamination by organisms from the outside biosphere. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the end the ambitious plan was too difficult to achieve. It was not possible to link the under-ice sump of melt water with the bore hole that was to deliver the probe. After extended attempts the team ran out of the gas supplies used to melt snow for pumping into the holes. The team have retreated back to Britain and are re-assessing the plan. Since the British attempt at Lake Ellsworth the Russian team at Lake Vostok have retrieved lake water samples by a simpler method. By partially withdrawing their drill bit away from the lake, water was allowed to enter the bore hole and freeze. Later, the drill extracted some of this frozen lake water, leaving a frozen section in place to act as a plug. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Lake Vostok team were effectively using the drill as a kind of syringe to extract lake water and hold it in a column. Controversially, the simplicity of the Russian system comes at at price. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At Lake Vostok fluids, used to prevent the the borehole collapsing, present a substantial contamination risk. Large quantities of kerosene and CFC were needed to prevent the hole closing at the base. The biological material retrieved from the ice, formed from frozen lake water, may be genuine local organisms or it may be contamination from the drilling. The situation is similar to the process by which a mosquito accidentally introduces a malarial parasite to the bloodstream of a person while attempting to feed from a blood vessel. Rejecting criticism of their failure to use a hot water drilling system, the Russian team insisted that not enough energy could be supplied. In the case of the British Lake Ellsworth project this did indeed turn out to be true.</span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">MAPSEC</span></h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">The recent re-development of the maser at the National Physical Laboratory could circumvent these difficulties. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Until recently the maser was a complicated device needing high magnetic fields and cryogenic cooling. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The new device at the NPL i</span><span style="font-size: large;">s a relatively simple crystal that accepts electricity and emits a maser beam. A much larger version could project maser beams deep into an ice field. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Because radio beams of different wavelengths can constructively interfere to create a third wavelength it should be possible to use scaled-up versions of the new masers to project beams of radio energy through ice and combine them at any depth to create the wavelength used in microwave cookers to boil water. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If this zone of water-specific heating were to be directed in front of a drill tip, it should be possible to ease it through the ice by melting it in advance. If the ice were to not just melt but also boil, a circular column of steam could sterilise the outside of the drill as it moved down through the ice. Rather than using two overlapping masers it could be possible to use the drill core as a wave guide to send a non-maser microwave beam 'down the pipe' and then combine it with a maser beam aimed at the tip. The radio source for the piped beam could be a conventional magnetron or klystron.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the purpose of the drilling is to deliver a capsule to a subglacial lake then the next stage of the process might be to dispense with the drill altogether and replace the mass of metal with a device on its own. The zone of melted water could be directed to the base of a capsule so that it sinks into the ice under gravity. Alternatively the capsule could actively propel itself through the ice/water mixture using stored on-board energy or even by harvesting radio energy from the beams that envelope it. The shell of the capsule would need to be in two counter rotating sections so that their torque would cancel out. Each half of the capsule would have opposing 'threads', left handed and right handed. The spiral protrusions on the surface could double as dipoles for received the harmonic wavelengths of radio energy not involved in melting the ice. Dispensing with a drill to deliver the capsule means that its width is not constrained by the maximum diameter of a drill. The project would be a Maser Assisted Polar Subglacial Exploration Capsule (MAPSEC).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Crucially, as he zone of melting would be limited to an area immediately around the capsule the water would re-freeze after its passage. An upwelling of water would be stopped by this plug of refrozen ice. Once floating in the lake water the MAPSEC capsule/submarine would undertake either a pre-programmed sequence of manoeuvres or it could be guided by radio. The maser beams could be switched off or reduced in power to serve as radar. Boiling of the water would be avoided as biology is of primary interest, but on its way down the lake the MAPSEC would have been effectively sterilised by the maser beams. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The screw thread on the exterior surface would be less effective in water so some water jet propulsion would be needed. Ports for sampling of lake water are required anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">After completing its mission the MAPSEC would rise to the top of the subglacial lake and make contact with the bottom of the ice. The zone of maser-melting would be restarted and the MAPSEC would ascend through the ice for retrieval on the surface. The zone of melting would be directly above the capsule while ascending, and again the temperature on its surface could be temporarily raised to above boiling to sterilise the surface if required. Once again, the melted ice would refreeze after the passage of the MAPSEC, preventing any uncontrolled upwelling of water. An upward pressure from the lake water might initially help to propel the MAPSEC upwards for a short distance, but the column of water would meet with the intense cold of the surrounding ice. </span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Main features of the MAPSEC proposal</span></h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">1) Refreezing of water after the passage of the MAPSEC capsule would seal the melted channel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2) Elimination of a drill would remove constraints on the size and diameter of the capsule.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3) The whole MAPSEC concept could be tested at very little cost using small scale models. Later, small capsules could be delivered to specific water channels under glaciers in Europe. The test site could be a short distance from a road.</span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">MAPSEC</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39x6xjT1DO2CSClfoppx3oWbBS4l3TuqJWMGUU1wqAX2gGllmjn-Pq3H-umYqaVfXwla9pv0UnQgqxno-s78gR1O59ZpbEzPA7vMsmw8Ci1W79S8a_y3cnYGAIt9VnYPxGeGnhUGh0w/s1600/MAPSEC+PictureTextLabels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39x6xjT1DO2CSClfoppx3oWbBS4l3TuqJWMGUU1wqAX2gGllmjn-Pq3H-umYqaVfXwla9pv0UnQgqxno-s78gR1O59ZpbEzPA7vMsmw8Ci1W79S8a_y3cnYGAIt9VnYPxGeGnhUGh0w/s1600/MAPSEC+PictureTextLabels.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Rather than passively sinking into the melted ice the MAPSEC probe could actively rotate sections to propel itself, using either on-board batteries or harvested radio energy from harmonic wavelengths not interacting with the ice.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM7nZRZmaWZ2GZtdMzRU5m-S0GWFE_C3LnCtFbm15MCEIt29ZHiqP2b7bYdrjIicFjm-jtuUj3FYpsz4eKO8YlDVZGlzTh7jLecHxwvQe-UTh5pwTTOMIUDi2D20Be_hnYTdfQNvaWQ/s1600/MAOSEC+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM7nZRZmaWZ2GZtdMzRU5m-S0GWFE_C3LnCtFbm15MCEIt29ZHiqP2b7bYdrjIicFjm-jtuUj3FYpsz4eKO8YlDVZGlzTh7jLecHxwvQe-UTh5pwTTOMIUDi2D20Be_hnYTdfQNvaWQ/s1600/MAOSEC+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">The probe descends through the ice towards the subglacial lake. The melt water re-freezes behind the melting zone</span>.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzV9Jl4nV98spur4HAzVkcDxLgs8Cj40UrFmvmzXFuv7RPn1lU6T46pywDo4TQyXNYkDny30jafxUYtrzEUPBIYrfavO55BRr0ENDJyVtJfF6K0nGNV3WIOfh7FJzVhnTxqz5BvWQ6-A/s1600/MAOSEC+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzV9Jl4nV98spur4HAzVkcDxLgs8Cj40UrFmvmzXFuv7RPn1lU6T46pywDo4TQyXNYkDny30jafxUYtrzEUPBIYrfavO55BRr0ENDJyVtJfF6K0nGNV3WIOfh7FJzVhnTxqz5BvWQ6-A/s1600/MAOSEC+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: start;">The probe breaks through into the water and exploration begins.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUW-6ziZ-IeQXT2IdnxLkqt4hXeAelij3i_R6Vu7KmDyx3gM87qe_weEuxtltEmr3NmOhHLYycxjnzwsN4oORRgezXfPHF5lfN9b_YcGXO3Dhw8oQPN77iS8hChCrp8JfyaIsoytbXtQ/s1600/MAPSEC+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="499" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUW-6ziZ-IeQXT2IdnxLkqt4hXeAelij3i_R6Vu7KmDyx3gM87qe_weEuxtltEmr3NmOhHLYycxjnzwsN4oORRgezXfPHF5lfN9b_YcGXO3Dhw8oQPN77iS8hChCrp8JfyaIsoytbXtQ/s1600/MAPSEC+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">The water exploration over, the probe is directed towards the ice.</span> <span style="font-size: large;">The masers combine to melt the ice ahead of it.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSyD-Dj9KR_hTBm86FfXq-twqHw2W8oGXiEeXJtOdIMEmxw1rGSDxf48jsgJaiO8QSHFTBry_AO6h9vroYlOiGQBjIRxGOs1sCKZ7jpZmiCeNGkyYNczRGb6bT7YQZoWTJBtahB-p7tQ/s1600/MAOSEC+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="497" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSyD-Dj9KR_hTBm86FfXq-twqHw2W8oGXiEeXJtOdIMEmxw1rGSDxf48jsgJaiO8QSHFTBry_AO6h9vroYlOiGQBjIRxGOs1sCKZ7jpZmiCeNGkyYNczRGb6bT7YQZoWTJBtahB-p7tQ/s1600/MAOSEC+4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; text-align: start;">The probe ascends back to the top of the ice with samples and data. The melted channel re-freezes behind it, preventing an upward flow of water.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the more distant future this technique could be developed for use on the ice moons of Jupiter and Saturn. As the wavelengths from the two masers is not that which interacts with the water dipole, there should be little attenuation of the beams by the ice. The water-melting wavelength would only be derived from their constructive interference where they overlap. Potentially, nuclear powered masers could send a probe many kilometres through ice to putative oceans on Europa and Callisto. Three spacecraft would be required to land in a rough triangle. Two outer maser spacecraft would illuminate the probe released from a third spacecraft.</span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">FAR FUTURE</span></h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">Another application for the NPL design of masers could be to vaporise ice on the surface of a comet that was approaching a collision with Earth. A suitably equipped spacecraft orbiting the comet could excavate a channel of boiling water within it's ice and the resulting jet of steam might be enough to alter the trajectory. For this purpose a single maser would suffice.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">John Stockton.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">14th July 2013</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Lake Ellsworth</span><br />
<a href="http://www.ellsworthlive.org.uk/" style="font-size: x-large;">http://www.ellsworthlive.org.uk/</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">NERC</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2011/24-ellsworth.asp">http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2011/24-ellsworth.asp</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">NPL video</span><br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4EQN6-EXHY"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4EQN6-EXHY</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">BBC</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19281566">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19281566</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nature</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/nature11339.html">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/nature11339.html</a></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Wikipedia</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subglacial_lake">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subglacial_lake</a></span><br />
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-38304174313695640802013-06-28T21:01:00.000+01:002014-01-01T21:29:37.680+00:00Shrinkable Mesh - Masers<span style="font-size: large;">The virtual re-invention of
the maser at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in 2012 could theoretically
offer the possibility of a new treatment for complicated bone fractures or other medical conditions that require positional correction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fractures that involve the
separation of the bone into multiple fragments present a problem to medicine. Butterfly
fractures are hard to treat as a small fragment of bone separated from two larger
sections may suffer from delayed re-union. Whereas <span lang="EN">intramedullary rods can be used
for other breaks, the small triangular fragment of bone is difficult
to incorporate in a conventional system of artificial support. Accidents that
result in multiple fractures are also hard to treat and </span>cerclage wires are sometimes used to hold bones
together while they re-unite. However problems can arise if these wires break
or interrupt the blood supply to the bone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although surgical mesh is
currently used in some surgeries for reconstructive work and hernia repair it
would probably only be useful for fractured bone support if it could be made to
contract. In the electronic manufacturing industries
heat-shrinkable plastic is sometimes used to tightly hold together strands of wire
that need to be secured in a bundle. The recent invention of lightweight and operationally simple maser devices could potentially be used to shrink a surgical mesh by
transmitting radio waves from the outside of the skin to the net of specially formulated plastic. The NPL team have
circumvented the need for complicated masers, formerly requiring high intensity
magnetic fields and cryogenic cooling, with the invention of a solid state
device based on a crystal called doped p-terphenyl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Crucially, if it were
possible to create a shrinkable plastic which responded to a specific radio
frequency instead of heat, a small zone of radio frequency action created by
overlapping masers of different frequencies could sweep the mesh structure and
cause a peristaltic type of contraction thereby gently squeezing the shattered
fragments of bone together. The effective frequency would be generated by
constructive interference only where the maser beams overlap, and the zone
could <span style="font-family: inherit;">be made to move i</span>n three dimensions, rather like the scanning of electron
beams used to create a picture in an old fashioned cathode-ray television tube.
The movement of the maser beams would need to be computer controlled. Precise
registration of electron beams was achieved in colour televisions before
digital technology was applied, but the concentration of maser radio energy onto
a variable three dimensional structures would need to be controlled with
software. This process might be helped if the beams switched to a radar </span><span style="font-size: large;">sensing </span><span style="font-size: large;">mode between
radio illumination phases.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The following images illustrate how a mesh of hypothetical plastic material shrinking in response to radio illumination by masers could help to re-establish the correct positions of bone fragments.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DhaDl6tcac2-Xc5rp3Jbil4OJCGRVwdoSvF9wdAhZjOMNxUWqvVAgCcPFbGN5_e_4ettE9SdNDv2nGgxgDTyMIotVaouogLJpgwmOEBhVtHDvciIYyfR0pC0ZEDxWpKJ9XTjK-MptQ/s800/Butterfly+00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DhaDl6tcac2-Xc5rp3Jbil4OJCGRVwdoSvF9wdAhZjOMNxUWqvVAgCcPFbGN5_e_4ettE9SdNDv2nGgxgDTyMIotVaouogLJpgwmOEBhVtHDvciIYyfR0pC0ZEDxWpKJ9XTjK-MptQ/s800/Butterfly+00.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> A butterfly fracture results
in a triangle of bone separated from two larger pieces of bone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJioVzAoNSSVOE55mfDASqw9H1Ep9yNlPz4rfCEK-BBqrkWU66Kbi7aV-KXXT5dDkWbx9eMtSEKCCvUqfqhgvbByTKMyNIk7Ud3yhiogkP2R6sRI3zL9RmTMmvyFQW_0FK7UoNkGMVg/s806/Butterfly+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJioVzAoNSSVOE55mfDASqw9H1Ep9yNlPz4rfCEK-BBqrkWU66Kbi7aV-KXXT5dDkWbx9eMtSEKCCvUqfqhgvbByTKMyNIk7Ud3yhiogkP2R6sRI3zL9RmTMmvyFQW_0FK7UoNkGMVg/s806/Butterfly+01.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The mesh of radio-sensitive
plastic surrounds a butterfly fracture.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3n9sufzMN0D8eqSeahpKMTppc-QRT9RQ1LDWkIQ5AwIXftEay6YVq__IxUe_LgKzGEaXQl0hPPlb42kG67ama9R5XQR4zj7xh2spDxX2eocxtWPqdDjl6aAO-IfwbFeaCBRbaMAf2Ww/s806/Butterfly+01hc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3n9sufzMN0D8eqSeahpKMTppc-QRT9RQ1LDWkIQ5AwIXftEay6YVq__IxUe_LgKzGEaXQl0hPPlb42kG67ama9R5XQR4zj7xh2spDxX2eocxtWPqdDjl6aAO-IfwbFeaCBRbaMAf2Ww/s806/Butterfly+01hc.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The mesh is illuminated with
radio frequencies from masers.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGfUH9_hsSPK2C_BmPNPXpFCwj_zFHkToTbBWQajN6TBrPtpwIUrFKery4kaPPntI-_m5OCYI87aMlXVpzUKlNNqpQmUdn3UF0tnr2oLJbLPdcBSQb6Me2LHMTANl_ws6vGvZyAltrw/s800/Butterfly+02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGfUH9_hsSPK2C_BmPNPXpFCwj_zFHkToTbBWQajN6TBrPtpwIUrFKery4kaPPntI-_m5OCYI87aMlXVpzUKlNNqpQmUdn3UF0tnr2oLJbLPdcBSQb6Me2LHMTANl_ws6vGvZyAltrw/s800/Butterfly+02.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The mesh shrinks and pushes
the bone fragments towards each other.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_b_lOScifxxP7rrS4ZH5KyMxG-MLWmWtYxN6cxczjub3FbLkw7gw9iDiWbxm46aMifgDM4h91a3AWgcZRGZV3JYfVTKAQSBC2vRan9Td_r6LuAMTFmhK6XVY4Ha94WjTaxpi51Kq7Q/s801/Butterfly+02hc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_b_lOScifxxP7rrS4ZH5KyMxG-MLWmWtYxN6cxczjub3FbLkw7gw9iDiWbxm46aMifgDM4h91a3AWgcZRGZV3JYfVTKAQSBC2vRan9Td_r6LuAMTFmhK6XVY4Ha94WjTaxpi51Kq7Q/s801/Butterfly+02hc.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">The mesh is illuminated with
radio waves for a second time.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEE1yflRljBLuXFzxyyDBo1WSSSsX1kDzjudbj-3cY8dzFrHA8lisfh4RJ8QV2G4nVIkYOVV-kvOowuuclDAszxJ8RqUxKyDnDefUam7JPdCCMnouNV6L73kUnV9tD8_bVaLIzcbY6Eg/s795/Butterfly+03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEE1yflRljBLuXFzxyyDBo1WSSSsX1kDzjudbj-3cY8dzFrHA8lisfh4RJ8QV2G4nVIkYOVV-kvOowuuclDAszxJ8RqUxKyDnDefUam7JPdCCMnouNV6L73kUnV9tD8_bVaLIzcbY6Eg/s795/Butterfly+03.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">The mesh arrives at its
smallest size.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K9_MsPeABFTp5Xv9Fr460fgCeq5XWe8XqP_SadT_TwglDXTdcztjK-xKH5yrZ7rM-crwGnR1a-Sr5HfRmOCHEfykNfGzJ1kewwup5LsJ6gOeMOCOAPhH1OFiDVT8XEUuiHGB-wGgng/s795/Butterfly+04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K9_MsPeABFTp5Xv9Fr460fgCeq5XWe8XqP_SadT_TwglDXTdcztjK-xKH5yrZ7rM-crwGnR1a-Sr5HfRmOCHEfykNfGzJ1kewwup5LsJ6gOeMOCOAPhH1OFiDVT8XEUuiHGB-wGgng/s795/Butterfly+04.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The mesh dissolves away after
the bone fragments have successfully re-united.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Clearly the type of heat shrinkable plastic currently available would not be suitable for incorporation into the human body as the temperatures required to cause it to shrink would also produce burning of tissue. The challenge for chemists is therefore to create a shrinkable plastic that will respond to the radio frequencies achieved by the newly re-invented maser. If this hypothetical plastic could also be made to dissolve over time this would obviate the need for subsequent surgery to remove it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the most useful medical application for a radio-sensitive shrinkable plastic mesh could be the correction of spinal disc herniation. If it were possible to insert a shrinkable mesh around the bulging nucleus pulposus and a painfully compressed nerve the shrinking mesh might support the spinal column and reduce the </span><span style="font-size: large;">pressure on the trapped nerve. Another potential use for a shrinkable mesh could be the treatment of aortic aneurysm or Marfan syndrome.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz0g56icmcMQFMeX65j9A_rUSVXN9aAhCtiA06MucjyCrFLxRYazJzpzkWHh-qHmO9oUf--nxq4rJft5_4qhQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another potential application of shrinkable mesh could include 3D forming in conjunction with 3D printing for industrial purposes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">BBC</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24524027" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24524027</a> </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19281566"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19281566</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nature<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/nature11339.html"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/nature11339.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">National Physical Laboratory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.npl.co.uk/videos/room-temperature-solid-state-maser"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.npl.co.uk/videos/room-temperature-solid-state-maser</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">John Stockton – June 2013</span><br />
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<b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Blurb<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">A Year of Weather<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2487866/ba4e13a17c6e198c46823f6f4bf971a6680a369f">http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2487866/ba4e13a17c6e198c46823f6f4bf971a6680a369f</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">SCANS<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/2998927/8958e462b363901548867d063bd567cffb87f2bd">http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/2998927/8958e462b363901548867d063bd567cffb87f2bd</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">FAUXSCAPE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/3980480">http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/3980480</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">6x6<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/4064859-6x6">http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/4064859-6x6</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Twitter</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://twitter.com/JohnStockton18">http://twitter.com/JohnStockton18</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836620972939576800.post-68597008768110874692013-06-01T17:17:00.000+01:002015-10-17T21:54:05.014+01:00Asteroid management – interplanetary landfill<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">Asteroid management – interplanetary landfill</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gTJupHKaPdQbB3n8IUybDeOQO_nOOSGnCwxk8BGghndNBbwEwGdWXqbqwGdmcriKdGW-29Oq1ttCltzGfNj0dN9y_g1JGEZykPmHEnB0hlJjvtTdZ-R7teQMUKRvb4t1kp3JDxrPnw/s1600/Untitled-106+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gTJupHKaPdQbB3n8IUybDeOQO_nOOSGnCwxk8BGghndNBbwEwGdWXqbqwGdmcriKdGW-29Oq1ttCltzGfNj0dN9y_g1JGEZykPmHEnB0hlJjvtTdZ-R7teQMUKRvb4t1kp3JDxrPnw/s400/Untitled-106+small.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The recent close encounter
with Asteroid 1998 QE2 has drawn attention to the long term need to manage the
threat to Earth posed by these objects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130530.html">NASA</a></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Since the realisation that an
asteroid was probably responsible for a mass extinction event that caused the
dinosaurs to become extinct, some consideration has been given to the means of
diverting Near Earth Objects (NEOs) away from a future collision with earth.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">NEO programme.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/target.html">http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/target.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The possibility of altering
the orbits of material that threatens the continuation of civilisation on Earth
offers the intriguing possibility that putative extra terrestrial cultures, not
much more advanced that ours, are already doing so. If a civilisation that is
significantly more advanced than ours were to engage in a long term asteroid
management what would they do with them? Perhaps instead of
continuing with an interplanetary juggling act, civilisation might decide to
consolidate the managed material into one large body that would enter an orbit
away from their own home planet. Although the unplanned addition of a new
planet to a star would potentially destabilise the orbits of existing planets
it has recently been discovered that some solar systems can have empty ‘slots’
into which a new body could be safely inserted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">New Scientist<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829134.500-a-handy-guide-to-planetary-parking-spots.html">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829134.500-a-handy-guide-to-planetary-parking-spots.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
Astrophysical Journal<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/767/2/115/">http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/767/2/115/</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The energy to undertake such
a large scale engineering project would depend on the successful ‘taming’ of
thermonuclear fusion. The current progress with the ITER project in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> is some years away from demonstrating this
possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <a href="http://www.iter.org/">http://www.iter.org/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">But assuming that controlled
thermonuclear fusion is achievable there is the intriguing possibility that
that some of the extra solar planetary systems currently being detected contain
artificial planets that are in effect landfill dumps for unwanted material that
previously threatened the wellbeing of an extra terrestrial civilisation. It
might be easier to engage in this scale of engineering than the creation of an
alternative habitat away from the home planet. The processes that could make it
possible (thermonuclear fusion, rocket propulsion) are currently better
understood that the ecological processes that keep our planet alive. Paradoxically,
the control of thermonuclear fusion might be simpler than micromanaging a
replica earth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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John Stocktonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857149310590511413noreply@blogger.com0