I applaud Obama's new direction for space exploration. It provides NASA with a focus for its mission. It will also help to foster the development of the commercial Space Industry. It brings clarity that has been missing in the past. This will allow the creation of new captial investment in Space thus accelerating progress.
Clarity is one of the missions that I always thought was primary in realtion to an effective goverments role. People like clarity as it brings a sense of understanding and stability. In the case of Space we can now move forward with a greater sense and understganing of the role that each of us should play. No longer need the private citizen sit on the side lines. Rather than just promoting space as the next frontier we can now move with more confidence and in a more deliberate manner. While several entreprenuers have already sought to develop some direction in space it has up until now been in areas that create little value. We have merely been dabbling. Value creation is now not only possible but probable. The first to move will be the first to gain. The new 'west' is calling and the new adventure is about to begin in earnest.
We are all familar with the ruins of anitquity and many of these are captured in paintings on my site. The interesting thing is to ponder what the ruins of our current civilization will look like to those who will ponder them years from now. This idea is the beginning of a new group of paintings on the subject of ruins that I will be working on as a part of the new Burning Forest Series. Ruins of the past and ideas of ruins of the future will portray what I believe to be an interesting reflection on the direction of our culure and its relationship to the ideas of time and space. The following is a quote from a recent article in Parabola Magazine on what it means to be human.
" As the cycle progresses, or rather decends, the very nature of time and space changes. In earlier ages, space dominates; the forms of things are more important, more real than the changes they undergo; time is relatively eternal."
In antiquity this was true but as we have progressed to the current part of the cycle time has begun to take over and the quality of what occupied space has changed. A deep state of calm represents a time dominated by space while agitation dominates a culture dominated by time. This is reflected in the architecture and the resultant ruins. This is the thematic concept of my new group of paintings.
The paintings will begin to reach the site this month and will launch my new Buring Forest Series. I hope you enjoy them.
Historically space art has been focused on the lesser of the contents of space. It has almost exclsuively focused on the material aspects of the universe. The ironic thing is that these material aspcets only make up 4% of the visible universe. Why haven't we focused on the other 96%? Because the 4% is more obvious. It is easier to create a representation of material objects than suggest what may be the contents of the other 96%. This leads me to another supposition. If it is true that man is a physical metaphor for the universe then 96% of us may be non material. In both cases I think it is this other 96% that the artist and poet tries to suggest. They suggest that there is 'something more' and it is a lot more! Most of us intutitively feel this to be true. Perhaps it is the artists job to remind us and suggest the way to a partial understanding of the other 96%.
I personally have turned the corner and will begin to explore the other 96% in both my space paintings and those of terrestrial focus. I think this is a better way toward progress and the possible creation of forever paintings.
Why do we spend so much of our time exploring the material aspects of space when they represent so little of the Universe? I think it is because the variety and evolution of the material part of the universe is evident to our five senses. But if all is an integrated whole then one could hypothesize that space(the void) too has more variety and is evolving although beyond our limited sensory perception. Perhaps the 'void' is more than just a stage on which the material universe plays out the story. Scientists have said that there is more zero point(potential?) energy in a small(several cubic centimeters) area of space than that contained in all of the material bodies of which we are aware. Do we need to begin to expand our search and look deeper into exploring the stage instead of focusing all of our efforts on the players?
Posted by: Jim in Astronomy on
Aug 06, 2008
The new Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will be creating a new picture of the entire heavens every 3 days. In the past the space artists, such as Bonstell, lead the way with intuitive renderings that helped to promote and popularize space. How will this role change in the age or tera and petra bytes of information? . Will the artists continue to lead or merely to render likenesses in dramatic fashion? I prefer the idea of leading and transparent watercolor to me is the best medium to do so
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