COSMIC DREAMING: SIMULATION? (EXO-PLANETS)

Cosmic Dreaming: Simulation? Oil on linen 31 x 56 cm 2018

Continuing with my 'pale blue dot' interest, I introduce you to Cosmic Dreaming: Simulation? (Exo-Planets). 

EXO-PLANETS

I was thinking about recent discoveries of potentially habitable exo-planets [example NASA site] orbiting distant stars. And, I was thinking about the unlikelihood of humans retreating to alternative planets outside our solar system in the near future, let alone the not-so-near future. That there might be life [of some kind] on these distant exo-planets is certainly intriguing though. 

But, with regards to humans travelling in space, getting to Mars is difficult enough! Plus, Mars will be obliterated, along with the rest of our solar system, when the sun reaches its final demise in around 4 billion years. So, staying within the solar system is doomed! Getting to Mars, though, is a stepping stone for all sorts of reasons. 

I was also thinking about the urgent need to look after the planet we do call home - Earth. We need to look after the planet, its non-human inhabitants and ourselves in order to sustain life. No good having escape plans, to set up home on an exo-planet, if we perish before we develop technology that will allow us to retreat elsewhere. But, this may be our fate...

SUSTAINABILITY - DREAMS - SIMULATION

While I was thinking about planetary sustainability, I was also thinking about simulation and dreams. 

So, is my painting an image from a dream, where alternative habitable planets, other 'pale blue dots', offer tantalising refuge for a beleaguered human species? Or, is the painting an image of a simulation, perhaps a game...a way to dupe us into thinking there are alternatives? The painting is not a game though.

Regular readers know of my interest in contemporary militarised technology, ubiquitous surveillance and increasingly autonomous weapon systems. While Cosmic Dreaming: Simulation? (Exo-Planets) does not refer directly to weapons or surveillance, it is linked to my dronescapes. It is linked by the cosmic perspective I take in many of my paintings. This perspective allows the viewer to fly. For example, in Cosmic Dreaming: Simulation? (Exo-Planets), are you above, below or beside the three pale blue dots? Are you on another planet, or in a spacecraft? Or, are you a spirit, a ghost from the future, maybe 10 billion years time - long after our solar system existed? Or perhaps you are a downloaded mind transmitted, ad infinitum, along an energy wave of some kind? Are you caught in some kind of simulation? 

VISION

As a painting, Cosmic Dreaming: Simulation?(Exo-Planets)offers many alternative interpretations. But, for me,  the power of human 'vision', in all its permutations - sight, insight, imagination and dreams - is an overarching consideration. This painting is, therefore, a resistance to the insidious infiltration of technological scoping, disguised as 'vision'. 

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF OTHER 'PALE BLUE DOT' PAINTINGS

       

Look again at that dot. (Sagan) Oil on linen 23 x 29.5 cm 2017

                                              Showing Them Our Home Oil on linen 30 x 56 cm 2017

Cheers,

Kathryn 

ANOMALY DETECTION

Anomaly Detection Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

The term anomaly detection is a technical one. It is an automatic system for detecting unusual behaviour, patterns or occurrences in, for example, live or stored data, such as film footage. Anomaly detection can allow preemptive actions. Regarding military drones the identification of anomalous behaviour, for example multiple vehicles moving at speed from different directions towards one destination, can trigger an alert for increased surveillance and readiness for potential attack. A drone's wide area surveillance capabilities mean expansive areas can be surveilled, and sophisticated detection and recognition algorithms are employed as another layer of surveillance monitoring. In civilian arenas anomaly detection systems are useful for a variety of monitoring requirements that range from security to environmental protections and more.

In Anomaly Detection I have turned drone surveillance on its head. Here, I have painted the drones as if pixelated, as if a detection and recognition algorithm has detected the anomalous behaviour of three armed drones converging on the tree-of-life hovering at the center of the image. The viewer of the painting could be monitoring the drones from the ground, looking up - or - from the sky/space looking down. In this way the viewer becomes aware of the power of perspective, even in imagination. 

COSMIC PERSPECTIVE

Cosmic perspectives implore us to seek distance, both close and far, as a way to examine ourselves and the planet. From vast distances it becomes obvious that planet Earth, despite discoveries of possible habitable exo-planets, is our only home for the foreseeable [and beyond] future. We need to look after the planet and ourselves. By exploring perspective and engaging with multiple perspectives maybe we'll discover more anomalies that highlight risk in ways that trigger precautionary, preemptive, restorative and pro-actionary activities?

I am really pleased with this painting - I actually think it is quite beautiful - in a way that achingly screams for the tree-of-life's survival in the face of potential destruction.

* Please check out the recent interview Portfolio: Dronescapes by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox with Maggie Barnett from The Centre for the Study of the Drone, Bard College, New York.

AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE CUTOUT

Australian Landscape Cutout Oil on linen 50 x 70 cm 2015

AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE CUTOUT

This is a painting from last year. I had fun with this painting - playing with cosmological ideas of landscape. As regular readers know I suggest that whilst Earth is our home, the Universe is our environment. In my work I attempt to untether landscape from Earth-bound horizons. In Australian Landscape Cutout the pale blue dot of Earth is placed against its Universal environment. And, the continent of Australia has been extracted to reveal the Universal embrace where star dust connects everything. 

Privileging a particular landscape is not my intention. Rather, I suggest that privileging a particular continental landscape becomes a myopic exercise when placed within the literal Universal environment, but also when placed against concerns about the future of humanity. Indeed, from a vast distance, Earth's geography disappears. This was clearly illustrated by the famous photograph 'Pale Blue Dot' taken by the spacecraft Voyager 1 when as it started to leave the outer solar system in 1990. Australian Landscape Cutout relates to another painting where I have extracted Australia from the Earth. This painting is called Privileged Landscape? ... notice the question mark!

Exoplanets

With talk of settlements on Mars and discoveries of potential habitable exoplanets orbiting the so-called Goldilocks zone of distant stars, suddenly there is the possibility of humanity extending its reach beyond Earth and even our solar system. I suggest that for this to happen we need to orient ourselves by extending notions of landscape. After all, in language we have extended landscape in the way we describe features on other planets, moons and so on. We use terms such as valley, mountain, plain, haze and more. By coupling language with extensions of how we think about and represent landscape, I propose we can grapple with ideas of life after Earth, life after the human even!

                                        Privileged Landscape Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2015

SPACE AND POPULAR CULTURE - ADELAIDE

Regular readers will know that I recently participated in an exciting event in Adelaide, Sth. Australia. I was one of four panellists for a public event 'Space and Popular Culture'. The event was for the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program from the International Space University [ISU: Strasbourg, France] and co-hosted at the University of Sth Australia.

The four panellists were space archaeologist Dr. Alice Gorman, me, underwater performance artist and Everest mountaineer, Dr. Sarah Jane Pell, and comedian and Mars One astronaut candidate Josh Richards. 

Please read my last post HERE for more of the details, video link etc.

RADIO INTERVIEW

I was interviewed on Radio Adelaide a day or so after the event. You can listen to it HERE

The interview is called The Creative Cosmos: An Interview With Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox 

COSMOLOGY

I read this amazingly interesting essay In The Beginning by Ross Andersen in Aeon Magazine. Please read it and you will understand why I paint the way I do, why I think about the things I do, why I feel a need to express them. Andersen wrote one line that particularly grabbed me "Art, literature, religion and philosophy ignore cosmology at their peril." 

Well...all I can say...with my hand over my heart is...I do not ignore cosmology.

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

EXO

 Exo Gouache and watercolour on paper 21 x 30 cm 2015

EXOPLANET
'Exo' a prefix, has Greek origins. It means external, outside from. In the last few years I have been introduced to the word exoplanet, which is a planet that orbits another star ie: it is outside our solar system. Astronomers have discovered quite a number of exoplanet candidates, which then go through further analysis before they are confirmed as exoplanets. Of these a small number are considered to be orbiting in the habitable zone of their host suns. To be considered as potentially habitable, the planet must orbit in the Goldilock's Zone ie: not too hot nor too cold, thus the possibility of an environment that may support human life. Or, the other tantalising possibility is that an alien life may exist on these planets.

Previous exoplanet posts!
Super Earths
New World Habitability: Vacation Anyone?
Entrance

EXODUS
'Exodus' is a noun, again with Greek origins, that means a mass departure of people...to somewhere 'outside of' or 'external to' a place of origin. The discovery of exoplanets has some people dreaming of alternative planetary 'homes' for us humans. For example as the Earth tumbles towards its demise, whether human induced or not, maybe there are places we humans can escape to? The only problem is that identified potentially habitable exoplanets are a looooong way from Earth, with present propulsion technology delivering us there in multiple hundreds of thousands of years. We'd need to develop speed of light travel to drastically reduce travelling time...let alone various other issues.

Previous 'Exodus' post:
Home

EXO
My painting  Exo [above] could be of an exoplanet, but then again it could be something else that's outside or external...but from what? Maybe it is another universe? Maybe it's inspiration, freedom, a speck of dust, a thought...waiting to be grasped?

Yes, Exo it is one of my cosmic landscapes that can be 'read' as something vast at the same time as something intimate. By playing with perspective I try yo give a sense of movement or travelling...perhaps a speed of light kind of travel?

Exodus Gouache and watercolour on paper 34.5 x 44 cm 2015

EXODUS
In Exodus I imagine humans having to flee Earth to take up 'residence' on a distant planet....an exoplanet identified as welcoming! In this painting a person is glued to their computer, while a rocket takes off with a flight path that sees it traverse space before 'leaving' the known to venture into the unknown beyond the painting. 

Here's a 'haves and haves not' scenario for you! I imagine that some people will be chosen to leave and others will be convinced, through simulation, that they are also to leave. But, because life has become a simulated 'experience' they are unaware that mortal death actually awaits them. I wrote this short poem a couple of years ago for my Flick of a Switch post: 

It’s time for Earthlings to flee their dying planet. Another home had been prepared. The ships have been built and one by one the people come, ready to embark.

The nervous excitement soars as count-down is commenced.

The last few seconds... 3-2-1

Blast off!

A sensation of flight.

For some, the simulated experience is so comforting that mortal death arrives before they realise it.

For others ...a new life!

___________________________________________________

Exo and Exodus are part of my ongoing series looking into the future of humanity, ideas of untethering landscape from Earth-bound horizons, posthuman futures, age-old symbols and more....

Please check out some of my recent posts: 

A Posthuman Habitat?

Two Humans: Uploaded 

Human Landscape

Text and Code

Picturing the Posthuman

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE/S

Alternate Universe Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm paper size 3005

 

 

ALTERNATE - UNIVERSE 

Alternate and Universe when coupled together bring to mind a couple of possibilities. There's the colloquial judgement made about someone who appears to not notice how their behaviour affects others...as if they are living on another planet or in another universe! Then there's the theory of a multi-verse, where there's more than one universe, existing simultaneously or maybe consecutively...or in some other dimensionality yet to be discovered.

 

Alternate Universe [above] is ten years old...I painted it in 2005. Yes, my interest in the cosmos is not new. I was probably a bit more grounded ten years ago though! By this I mean, I had not clearly thought about untethering concepts of landscape from Earth-bound horizons, one of my current quests, both intellectual and creative.

 

TEN YEARS AGO

The painting below Other Universes is a little more recent, but it has a similar far away, yet also a strangely close, feel. As in Alternate Universe the markings seem whimsically intimate on the one hand, yet suggestive of endless vastness at the same time.

 

 

 

Other Universes Gouache and watercolour on paper 15 x 21 cm paper size 2011

 

 

WATCHING

The two paintings below 'speak' about watching or observing. The first one suggests an observance of the Universe by others and the second painting suggests that the universe is undertaking the watching or observing. Yet, when you think about it, the universe is everything, so that any observation is witness to...well... everything, intimately and openly, inside and out, Earthlings and aliens...and more!

 

The two paintings below are more recent ie: 2013 and 2015 and reflect my ongoing interest in searching the universe for scapes of all kinds. The most obvious is landscape. I am interested in how we might re-think concepts of landscape in the cosmological21st century where exoplanets entice with possibilities for future human habitation, after we plunder the resources of our current planetary home. It is worth thinking about landscape, in the broadest sense, to explore humankind's relationship with something that keeps us 'grounded' [literally and metaphorically], emotionally, spiritually and physically. It may help us sustain Earth, at the same time as acting as a cautionary sensor for future explorations beyond Earth's horizon. And...that's where my quest to un-tether notions of landscape form earth-bound horizons comes from. By extending our landscape perspective into space it provides us with multiple vantage points to observe ourselves, our Earthly home, our Universal environment, time and space.

 

 

 

Watching The Universe Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2013

 

 

The Universe Watches Everything Gouache on paper 21 x 30 cm paper size 2015

 

HOME

Home Gouache and watercolour on paper 38 x 42.5 cm

 

 

DIFFERENT HOMES

We can examine the word 'home' from a few perspectives....and regular readers know how much I like thinking about and with perspective!
 

Home can be the abode we live in. It can also be where we were born, which maybe in another city, town or country. Home can be where we feel most comfortable, and that does not have to be the physical place where we eat, sleep and so on. It can be where our parent/s live. We can feel 'at home' within ourselves, even if we are not in a physical place that we would normally call a home.

 

 

AND

 

 

EARTH

Home can also be planet Earth. After all, it has been 'home' to every human, past and present...but maybe not for future humans, except in nostalgic reminiscences! The concept of leaving or returning home, when it's Earth that's being left or returned to, certainly stretches perspective as well as the enormity of possible 'home-sickness'.
 

Where might future humans call 'home'? Well...the Mars One project certainly extends the idea of a future human home beyond Earth. It's still within our solar system, but poses many potentially catastrophic issues for those who might try to inhabit the planet. So, alternatives might be found in the increasing number of recently discovered Earth-like planets, orbiting in the Goldilocks zones of distant stars. These are called exoplanets ie: they are outside our solar system. For some people they offer great promise for possible alternative planetary homes for humans, and presumably selected animals, and possibly plants too. But, the latter would depend on the abundance of flora a new planetary home might offer, because...it has been posited, some of these far-away planets might be even more abundant than Earth!
 

EXODUS

As philosopher Paul Virilio comments in his 2012 book 'The Great Accelerator' [p.17] these exoplanets entice with a kind of 'promised land' story. But, his sentiment is coupled with a critical condemnation or warning of the destructive forces that might cause, and witness, a mass exodus of humanity from Earth. Indeed, Earthly human history has many examples of mass exodus of people, caused be a need or an urgency to leave, that have resulted in major issues for everyone involved.
 

And, that brings me to current events where masses of people are fleeing war-torn countries in the Middle East, mainly Iraq and Syria. People are also fleeing unsafe environments in Africa and Asia. The moving mass of people around the globe, particularly into Europe, has accelerated in recent months due to heightened/sustained threats, as well as the northern hemisphere Summer, which makes it more conducive for travelling/fleeing on foot, by boat and camping out etc. Needless to say, despite Summer weather, the dangers of seeking refuge are still present, as clearly evidenced by dreadful happenings, such as deaths at sea and more. These people are fleeing from HOME...of country, house, family, heritage, culture. Their suffering on so many levels is beyond belief. I wonder if they can keep their internal 'homes' intact? I wonder...
 

Home Gouache and Watercolour on paper 2015
 

My new painting is another of my cosmic landscapes. Can you pick where 'home' might be? Yes, the beacon of the tree-of-life heralds to you! It could be Earth, or it could a future exoplanetary home? Or, it could be symbolic of 'home' as an amalgam of country, house, family, heritage and culture. It could be symbolic of that place within that provides spiritual and mental refuge, even if the physical world of 'home' is taken away.
 

Placed within a cosmic-like perspective, the small tree-beacon, might suggest that the Universe is our home. Yet, taking the universe, both as a literal place but also something 'other'...maybe in a yet-to-be-discovered other dimension...this painting may suggest the possibility of a 'home' we cannot yet imagine?

 

 

Selected posts about the idea of HOME

Greener Pastures  Here I 'play' with the stories of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, plus Billy Goats Gruff with reference to seeking new 'homes' on other planets.

New World Habitability. Vacation Anyone?  Here I discuss the possibility of exoplanet super abundance .

Questions - Three Paintings In this post I write about three works on paper that pose questions about humanity leaving Earth

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com