Daniel Baker - Week 10 - The Sublime in Space, Plasma, and Art
Of the many facts that Walter Gekelman discussed in this week’s lecture, one seemed to stand out as a symbol for the weekly subject: the idea that their our 100 billion galaxies in our universe, each with 100 billion stars each, meaning there are 100 billion x 100 billion stars in the universe. That’s a lot of stars. This statement, seemingly hidden amongst the various facts and comments about plasma, left a strong impact in the middle of the lecture. It was one of those moments where you realize just how unfathomably large our universe, and how tiny and relatively unimportant we are. Even if one’s actions significantly change the whole globe, our planet is just a microscopic fraction of the entire universe, so do our actions really count for anything? But it is also a positive realization as well, immensely freeing for our lives are so short, and we are so small, that every little moment counts and it seems ridiculous to waste any part of our lives, years, or even day. With so little to change, how can we sit around idly without even being responsible for our fraction of the universe that we actually can make a difference upon? It is an important job being tiny and relatively meaningless.
This is the art in space. Yes, there is the art that takes advantage of the physical characteristics of a dark vacuum or weightlessness, but what is really the art that is beautiful is that which utilizes the philosophical implications of space. The idea of space is both incredibly frightening and intensely intriguing, and therefore becomes a sublime subject in the realm of art. The sublime feeling of terror (but unreal terror) and pleasure that kicks in when confronted with something incomprehensible has been a popular subject of art for centuries. Caspar David Friedrich, one of the most well known painters of the sublime around 1840 is one such example.
His works deal with the sublime qualities found in nature, in the vast landscapes that both overwhelm and stimulate. These same feelings can be found in space, in its philosophical implications and its artistic representations.
The symposium on Tesla seemed to bring up some similar issues of the sublime in the inventor’s work. In the last speaker’s presentation on the Nevada Lightning Lab, there were descriptions on the new research center for the lab, featuring the largest Tesla Coils ever conceived. The size and power of the proposed coils are powerful enough to create actual bursts of lightning that split through atoms, a phenomenon called Relativistic Runway Breakdown that as of now, only occurs in real lightning bolts. These massive structures that have the power to mimic nature clearly conjure up feelings of the sublime, bringing forth ideas of both terror and a desire for more. Both Tesla’s works as well as the Nevada Lightning Lab’s deal with huge and almost magical concepts, creating an intimidating and fearful buzz surrounding their ideas, yet the scientists continuously yearn to delve deeper.
What seemed interesting in Gekelman’s conversation on plasma is that in order to understand the nature of the universe, one must look at an extremely small scale. All of Gekelman’s research is driven by the release of tinier and tinier sensors measuring the smallest characteristics of the subject. The item under inquiry is so small that special visualization techniques must be employed in order to understand what is going on at such a microscopic level. Similarly, art that deals with space must use some sort of method to display the hugeness of space in way that we can comprehend. Both areas rely on art to be able to comprehend ideas that are out of our normal range of cognition. Both the incredibly huge quality of space and the incredibly small quality of plasma provoke the same feelings of the sublime. Each is powerful and yet intriguing, and interestingly both deal with getting closer to understanding the fundamentals of the universe, but from completely opposite directions.
This is the art in space. Yes, there is the art that takes advantage of the physical characteristics of a dark vacuum or weightlessness, but what is really the art that is beautiful is that which utilizes the philosophical implications of space. The idea of space is both incredibly frightening and intensely intriguing, and therefore becomes a sublime subject in the realm of art. The sublime feeling of terror (but unreal terror) and pleasure that kicks in when confronted with something incomprehensible has been a popular subject of art for centuries. Caspar David Friedrich, one of the most well known painters of the sublime around 1840 is one such example.
His works deal with the sublime qualities found in nature, in the vast landscapes that both overwhelm and stimulate. These same feelings can be found in space, in its philosophical implications and its artistic representations.
The symposium on Tesla seemed to bring up some similar issues of the sublime in the inventor’s work. In the last speaker’s presentation on the Nevada Lightning Lab, there were descriptions on the new research center for the lab, featuring the largest Tesla Coils ever conceived. The size and power of the proposed coils are powerful enough to create actual bursts of lightning that split through atoms, a phenomenon called Relativistic Runway Breakdown that as of now, only occurs in real lightning bolts. These massive structures that have the power to mimic nature clearly conjure up feelings of the sublime, bringing forth ideas of both terror and a desire for more. Both Tesla’s works as well as the Nevada Lightning Lab’s deal with huge and almost magical concepts, creating an intimidating and fearful buzz surrounding their ideas, yet the scientists continuously yearn to delve deeper.
What seemed interesting in Gekelman’s conversation on plasma is that in order to understand the nature of the universe, one must look at an extremely small scale. All of Gekelman’s research is driven by the release of tinier and tinier sensors measuring the smallest characteristics of the subject. The item under inquiry is so small that special visualization techniques must be employed in order to understand what is going on at such a microscopic level. Similarly, art that deals with space must use some sort of method to display the hugeness of space in way that we can comprehend. Both areas rely on art to be able to comprehend ideas that are out of our normal range of cognition. Both the incredibly huge quality of space and the incredibly small quality of plasma provoke the same feelings of the sublime. Each is powerful and yet intriguing, and interestingly both deal with getting closer to understanding the fundamentals of the universe, but from completely opposite directions.
Labels: Section 4
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10:23 PM
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