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Ecomedia
How the Natural World is Transforming the Nature of Media.
This weblog is not the usual blog of daily events. It contains a series of notes/thoughts designed to make connections between science and media art.
Sometimes these ideas are tied in with current events, but most of the time this blog is not in any particular order. It serves as a central area for a detailed examination of ideas first published in a 1999 Leonardo Journal article entitled 'Active Vision' that I hope to develop into a book that will discuss some of the current developments in science, ecology, media and society and how they inform and are informed by new technologies. The book will be written for artists working with digital media and anyone who is interested in future directions of the medium.
http://www.andreapolli.com
last modified Sep 7, 2006 at 13:00
Research in binoocular depth perception by Eckhard Hess in 1953. Looks like a rubber helmet with lenses fitted to the chick's head:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0604/peer/photo.shtml
Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute spoke abuot strategies in the search for extraterrestrials. He began by saying that people are most interested in people, in film plots and in the space program. For example, the most interesting thing about Mars is the idea that there may have been life there.
Although SETI is really about imagination and speculation, that's what makes it so wonderful, Shostak said there is some known information, for example, there are 156 known nearby exoplanets, and at least 5-10% of stars have planets.
As a way to try to better understand what life on other planets might be like, SETI has been studying catalytic pathways to life on Earth. Evidence of the oldest life on Earth so far was found in the Western hills of Australia, microbe fossils within the oldest sedimentary rock on the planet (3.5 billion years).
Shostak said there were three ways of looking for life in space
First, in nearby planets: bacteria under the surface of Mars that might be responsible for creating the methane in the atmosphere, life on Europa which has more liquid water than Earth, an the possibility of life in the atmosphere of Venus.
Second, analyze atmospheres of other worlds using spectrometers mounted on space telescopes like NASA's Kepler mission, a planned a space telescope that will help to determine how many stars actually have planets and how many of those planets are similar to Earth.
Third, find evidence left by intelligence by looking for direct evidence of large scale engineering, i.e. ringworlds, dyson spheres and re-assembled universes looking for signals like
flashing laser lights or radio signals.
SETI has been listening to radio signals for 46 years now sometimes using the largest Radio Telescope in the world in Puerto Rico (1000 feet across). The looking is done in the microwave range of the spectrum at an rf freq of 1709 965599,6 HZ because these narrowband signals are the only kind of transmitters that can carry long distances. These radio receivers have been pointed towards nearby stars and SETI has done radio surveys of 1000 nearby stars, a large number but barely scratching the surface of the universe.
One serious area of study relating to how life might be sustained in space is the study of extremophiles on Earth. Extremophiles are biological creatures that surviv in extreme environments: in Antarctica, on the rims of active volcanos, and in a remote desert in Chile that is acually used by Mars researchers because it is the most similar environment to Mars on Earth.
Logan called Antarctica a 'sortie' destination, defined by a place where babies are not born (although, a member of the audience pointed out that recently a baby had been born in Antarctica, Logan pointed out that this was an exception and not the rule).
James Logan who served as a NASA surgeon presented a series of wonderful anecdotes about the role of the life sciences in space science. He also talked about one of Magellan's voyages across the pacific in 1519 when 80% of the crew (including Magellan) died. The majority of the survivors were officers and people at the time talked about how the officers obviously had 'the right stuff' to survive te taxing voyage. The right stuff turned out to be the small amounts of mint jelly that the officers had access to that provided just enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy. Logan pointed out that this kind of mythology about the magical 'right stuff' lingers despite medical evidence to the contrary. In the early days of the shuttle program, there was a discussion of the 'right stuff' in terms of space sickness.
Science fiction author Greg Benford spoke on a panel with Larry Niven in a room with a giant rotating model of the Earth. This 'big blue marble' image taken from the moon is a poignant image of the fragility of Earth and life on it that became an emblem of the environmental movement. Greg Benford said that the space community is actually the ultimate environmental community because it takes that perspective outside of the Earth, looking at it as a whole, to truly understand the importance of the environment.
Issues related to the environment, specifically gobal warming, surprising have been contentious at the conference. In a talk by Bill Nye (The Science Guy), members of the audience debated his statements about both the existence of and the human influence on global warming. Michael Chrichton's 'State of Fear' book that has been so popular with the oil industry was even mentioned.
I think people were haing a hard time with the 'gloom and doom' feeling around global warming, blind optimism versus dark pessimism.
Later I visited a panel called 'Can space help save Earth's energy Crisis', focusing on solar arrays in space. John Mankins of the SUNSAT energy council showed a series of charts indicating that energy demand in the world will continue to increase, against Hubbert thesis from Scientific American 1998, indicating that the future of oil production looks like a bell curve and that actual consumption is on the way down. Mankins showed other charts that indicated dramatic increase in imports of not only oil, but natural gas and coal.
Yesterday I saw science fiction author Larry Niven present on a panel of other authors including Greg Benford.
They talked a bit about the way science fiction often accurately predicts the future, in the case of Niven, technological developments, but also other developments.
For example a new development to aid vision in bright sunlight is Nivenglass: a windshield or sunglass lens that turns a damagingly bright light to black, like a photographic solarization in real time.
http://www.xmission.com/~dmcguire/Research/index.htm
Another type of Nivenglass proposed but not yet being developed comes from a story where special glass is used to create a beer glass that is able to determine its own emptiness and notify the bartender for a refill (in Niven's version the glass is connected to a matter transporter that allows it to fill itself).
Some of the more interesting artworks and art ideas (as well as science ideas) to me at this conference are those that deal with information transmission.
Michael Punt, and artist and art historian who directs Trans-tech Research at the University of Plymouth
http://www.trans-techresearch.net/
Presented his work exploring the correlation between early tv technology and space exploration. He discussed how telepresence was (and still is) of primary importance in space exploration.
Like Koken, he also talked about the metaphorical meanings of space, showing how space is conflated with the idea of heaven, showing art historical images of 'the annunciation'
He also presented a collaborative project called AuroraLive located here:
http://www.aurorafeast.net/
in which individuals share their ideas about the aurora borealis, exploring metaphor and meaning in atmospheric phenomena.
Veronique Koken gave a presentation about the physics and metaphysics of black holes starting with a discussion of Rodin's 'Gates of Hell'. She spoke about the negative reputation of black holes being given many horrible names my favorite of which was 'bulimic feeders'.
She spoke about the structure of black holes, having a 'point of no return' called the 'event horizon' where no light can escape. An area in the center of the black hole where matter is compressed into infinite density is called the 'singularity'
When an object is sucked into a black hole it is stretched out, a process called 'spaghettification.' She used a statement that is sometimes used to decribe black holes: 'black holes have no hair' which means there is nothing to be seen when considering a black hole, they are only known through their influence on matter.
Koken outlind the 3 known types of black holes:
-stellar (formed when a star collapses)
-mid-mass (mass of 500-1000 suns)
-super-massive (mass of a million or more suns)
Interestingly, every galaxy seems to have one super-massive black hole at its center which may be the reason galazies form.
When Koken talked about the metaphysics of a Black Hole, she defined metaphysics meaning things that come 'after' physics, and not necessarily religious or even spiritual metaphysics.
Koken was first attracted to this idea from Rodin's sculpture 'The Gates of Hell'. Rodin intentionally personified Dante in 'The Thinker' and placed this sculpture at the front of the Gates of Hell sculpture, as if to place Dante himself contemplating the gates of Hell.
Dante's Hell (described in the great epic work 'Inferno') was a series of nine cones. Looking at an image from Inferno, the connection with the Black Hole is clear. Lucifer is located at the bottom of the cone and like a black hole draws all matter towards him At the bottom of Hell there is a tunnel that leads to the other side, again similar to some of the theories about what happens at the center of a black hole.
The first presentation in the Space Art Track of the ISDC was by Chris Robinson, a pioneer of the 'artists in space' genre. Years ago, he was recruited as a naval aviator and trained as a navy pilot. Always an artist, he wanted to gain access to military space research sites, but not surprisingly found that when he identified himself as an artist, he was denied access. However, he found that if he identified himself as a journalist (even with no credentials) sites became accessible to him. As an artist, he has flown in zero-g and worked with technological processes over the years from xerography to 3D computer graphics.
In his career, he traveled to The Kennedy Space Center and participated in talks about the space shuttle prior to its development. One of the original recommendations for the shuttle program was that 'citizen observers', visual observers, journalists and educators for example.
The citizen observer program was implemented in the shuttle program in the form of educators, but unfortunately, the first flight that hosted an educator, Christa McAuliffe, was the tragic Challenger flight. Public opinion on citizen observers in space and the shuttle program in general made a major shift at that point.
Robinson talked about the History of Space Art and cited an exhibition called Experiments in Arts and Technology in the 60's and the work of James Turrell and Robert Irwin. He mentioned it but didn't go as far as to say that Turrell's Roden Crater is a work of space art, I would.
He talked about the public perception of space art, maybe defined by the work of Robert McCall, which he (and I) would define as illustration. He talked about the difference between art and illustration and pointed to the work of Laurie Anderson, a recent NASA artist-in-residence and Dan Goods current JPL artist-in-residence who to Robinson indicates a shift towards media art in space art and art and technology in general. He also praised Paul McCready and Burt Rutan as space entrepreneurs who have been supportive of the arts.
This was really the beginning of what continued to be and what will continue to be in this conference a really serious discussion about the role of space art in space programs and in the art world. Robinson pointed out one challenge for artists is that unlike science, which the public easily perceives as highly complex and expects to be difficult to understand, art is expected to be accessible to everyone. In other words, in our culture artists might have to deal with public expectations more than scientists might have to.
Another major topic of discussion was the problem of space art not currently playing any role in art history. More on that later as I am late to another presentation.
After Dr. Olsen's presentation, Eric Anderson, President and CEO of Space Adventures, a space tourism travel company that sponsors zero-g flights, near space experiences, neutral buoyancy EVA training, centrifuge runs and other 'space experiences'.
The Orbital program sponsors trips to the space station like the one Olsen did. Anderson showed images of the flights leaving from from Kazachstan and from Baikonur in Russia. Appently the soviet era space program has now become an opportunity for commercial agencies, using soviet era vehicles like the Soyez and Buran, the soviet space shuttle.
Space Adventures has plans to build several space ports for space tourism, the first will be in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and a second is planned in Singapore, both places have a long history of seaport operations that continue today.
Space Adventures highest ticket item, at the cost of 100 million dollars, is a 'circumlunar' mission, the first private voyage around the moon, that starts with several days stay on the space station.
Another representative presented the x-prize cup, being touted as 'the greatest space exposition on earth' held every year in Las Cruces New Mexico. New Mexico is the first place where a rocket was launched into space from the US in the 1940's. The 'Astroprenuers' launch 25-30 private rocket flights in two days and there are plans for a lunar lander challenge.
Also discussed was another space tourism program run by zero gravity corporation, that sponsors 80 flights per year out of Kennedy Space Center, and is now sponsoring flights out of Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
A video clip of Martha Stewart on a Zero-G flight was shown in this panel and one of the panelists mentioned the question of funding. He said although the flights are incredibly expensive and require large amounts of support, getting off dependence on the government will be the only way to get more people into space for less cost. This statement elicited a spirited applause from the audience.
So, it's an interesting transformation that's happening, the move to privately funded space flight and exploration. I imagine this transition is similar to the transition to our current commercial air industry. The goal of the space tourism industry seems to be to get as many people out experiencing space as possible.
The first presentation I saw featured Greg Olsen, who at 60 years old, was the third person to fly to the International Space Station as a 'space tourist'.
He started by recognising a woman named Erin Peterson who is participating in the NASA-sponsored bedrest study at the Cleveland Clinic. She's suspended in what looks like a very uncomfortable contraption, and her blog is here
http://stardustholiday.blogspot.com/
Here is some information from the site that describes the benefits to be gained from her physical endurance project.
"During spaceflight an astronaut experiences many effects on his or her body due to the effects of microgravity. The 6 degree head down position simulates microgravity that occurs in space. The purpose of this research study is to determine if zero gravity exercise can serve to prevent loss of bone mineral density and muscle during 12 weeks of complete bed rest, and by extension, during 12 weeks of space flight. Subjects will spend 84 days in the Cleveland Clinic, in bed, at 6 degrees head down. 50% of the subjects will be in the control group and 50% of the subjects will be in the exercise group. The selection of control or exercise is random."
I'm currently at the The International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. On the long flight here from New York I read Stanislaw Lem's science fiction novel from the late 1960's 'His Master's Voice' about a mathematician who was involved in a US government-controlled project to translate what was believed to be an inter-stellar message sent via neutrino waves.
Through the voice of this leading mathematician, Lem discusses various approaches to the understanding of this message, leading into the areas of linguistics, information theory, physics, and even evolution, psychology and philosophy.
A part of HMV is translated by two groups of biologists into a strange substance called alternatievely 'frog's eggs' and 'lord of the flies.' Although the pattern of neutrino waves themselves are found to have life-favoring properties, this substance is discovered to have unusual properties that for a while causes the scientists to fear the development of a new super-weapon with the potential to destroy all life on Earth.
This allows Lem to write about the politics of this kind of research, the ultimate control of the direction of the research lying with the military and the scientists' struggle with the implications of their research. The scientists are powerless, holed up in a remote facility in Nevada that was used to monitor nuclear tests in the 40's and 50's and subject to constant monitoring by the project directors.
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