WATCHING THE UNIVERSE

Watching The Universe gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2013

 

It's one week since my solo exhibition COSMIC ADDRESS ended. And, it was a great exhibition! I really loved 'putting on a show' for everyone! I wrote a recent post called PUTTING ON A SHOW ... all about the behind-the-scenes activities of exhibiting...paintings!

 

I have not created any new work either during or after the exhibition. But, I have started to think about a body of new work for my next exhibition in 2014...about a year away.

 

Watching The Universe

The painting above Watching The Universe was painted in the few weeks leading up to COSMIC ADDRESS. Yes, I will be continuing the cosmology theme. The background gives an illusion of vast Space, yet it could also be the intimate interior of something only visible with the help of a microscope. Both have Universal dimensions! The line work is indicative of eyes watching, either watching you the viewer or watching the vortex-like Space visible in the middle of the painting.

 

There's a multiplicity of perspectives to be explored!

 

Watching The Universe was inspired by a few influences. 

• Prof Nick Bostrom's theory that we are living in a computer simulation devised by post humans who re-live their human existence via a simulation which they 'watch' and vicariously 'live'. Not only is it a re-living of the human existence but also a re-telling or re-evolution of all existence since the Big Bang. I wrote a recent post COUNT DOWN where I discuss this theory a little more. 

• Another influence is the discovery of various Earth-like planets in other star systems. Here's one article http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/09/super-earth-found-habitable-zone There are plenty of articles 'out there'... so you can discover for yourself. The search for other Earth-like planets opens up the possibility of aliens, or my more kindly term 'space mates', who may or may not be watching us, as we attempt to find and see them. The discovery of other Earth-like planets also poses the possibility that at some time in the far distant future we humans might have somewhere else to call 'home'. Please check out my previous post SUPER EARTHS

• A phrase in Physicist/Cosmologist Prof Joel Primack and Lawyer/Philosopher Nancy Ellen Abrams book The New Universe And The Human Future
  
  As much as people around the world hope to find aliens beings on other planets the possibility exists that only our eyes see this universe' P. 65This kind of phrase may seem anthropocentric, but it does not exclude the possibility of other life forms. It actually implies a kind of responsibility for us to continue in our quest to know as much as possible about our Universal environment.

• I was thinking about the increasing surveillance in our lives...drones, mobile phone tracking, street cameras, GPS systems, data collection and more. But, as we watch, and are watched, with all kinds of devices, are we essentially navel gazing? If so, are we [except a few] missing out on 'seeing' the vast perspectives and frontiers of Universal knowledge? Maybe...maybe not? A recent post called LOOKING OUT THE WINDOWS investigates learned myopia [metaphoric and literal].

• In 1995 I painted a work on paper called Dare To Be Yourself. It is one of the paintings in my book For Everyone It is a painting of a family of four being watched! In this case the eyes are 'alien' eyes casting their gazes across a family who did something that was not the norm.

 

Dare To Be Yourself Gouache on paper 28 x 37.6 cm 1997 

 And for those who missed it, here's a video of my exhibition COSMIC ADDRESS

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com