Week Nine Blog: Space and Art


A photo showing different viewpoints from the video, from outside of the galaxy to an atomic scale (de Albeniz)


            Imagine zooming out to space 10^22 meters away from Earth; that is what the Powers of Ten video illustrated (Lewin). Every 10 seconds, the video zooms out 10 meters farther away from Earth, and once it reaches over a million light years away, it zooms into a person’s hand, 10^-9 meters, at an atomic scale. I have seen this video before, but it never fails to amaze me. One is able to see constellations and even outside of the Milky Way galaxy as well as the atoms in a person’s hand (Lewin).

This week, we learned about the intersection of space and art, starting with Copernicus’ heliocentric model, where he suggested that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun (Vesna). During the Renaissance, science developed and advanced, such as Galileo Galilei’s telescope created in 1609, which was a significant achievement (“Galilean Telescope”). He was able to explore and identify spots on the sun, Jupiter’s four largest satellites, hills and valleys on the Moon, and phases of Venus.


A photo of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Micheal Collins, the first people to land on the moon (“Apollo 11: Buzz Aldrin greeted by cheers on moon landing's 50th anniversary”)


In the 1950s, the space race began between America and the Soviet Union, where each country competed for the next advancement in astronomy and sending animals and people into space. The USSR put the first dog and human into space, and America put the first people on the Moon (Vesna). Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two people to walk on the Moon. In fact, I met Aldrin at a book signing when I was younger; I just remember being so excited to meet someone who had not only been in space but also walked on the moon.


A photo of Johnson’s  “Rocky Mountain High” (“Rocky Mountain High”)


In connecting space and art, the Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group consists of people who explore and promote cultural elements of space activities. It includes an astronomer, an artist, an educator, and an engineer (“The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group”). B.E. Johnson, the engineer and also an artist, creates art that depicts space, astronomy, or related events. For example, in his painting “Rocky Mountain High,” he portrays a rocket shooting into space (“Space Art of BE Johnson: Painting I”). His images are incredible, and seeing space depicted through art gives me a new and more-defined perspective of a broad topic that can be hard to grasp at first.



Works Cited

“Apollo 11: Buzz Aldrin greeted by cheers on moon landing's 50th anniversary.” The Guardian, 20 July 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/20/apollo-11-moon-landing-trump-buzz-aldrin. Accessed 26 May 2022.

de Albeniz, Martínez. “In praise of complexity: From gastronomy to gastrology.” Europe PMC, https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc8792526#. Accessed 26 May 2022.

“Galilean Telescope.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/Galilean-telescope. Accessed 26 May 2022.

“The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group.” Leonardo Space Art Project, https://spaceart.org/leonardo/vision.html. Accessed 26 May 2022.

Lewin, Walter. “Powers of Ten (1977).” YouTube, 27 August 2010, https://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0. Accessed 26 May 2022.

“Rocky Mountain High.” Imperial Earth Space Art,, https://imperialearth.com/pimaget.php?filename=rockymtnhigh600.jpg&title=Rocky%20Mountian%20High. Accessed 26 May 2022.

“Space Art of BE Johnson: Painting I.” Imperial Earth Space Art, https://imperialearth.com/paintings.html. Accessed 26 May 2022.

Vesna, Victoria. (2022). “Space and Art.” DESMA 9. Class lecture at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, May 23, 2022.

Comments

  1. hanna_wittmack_desma9May 26, 2022 at 10:35 AM

    Hey Hailey,

    No way! its so cool that you actually met Buzz Aldrin in real life. I feel like it probably just peaked your interest in the subject that much more since you have had a first hand contact with the science world of space. I think its crazy looking at the power of ten video and realizing just how small one human is.

    ReplyDelete

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