Week 9: Space and Art

        




        This week’s lectures focused on the exploration of space and the impact that it had on art. Watching this week’s lectures made me so small and insignificant when compared to the vastness of space. In the Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan says when talking about the Earth, “every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on the mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”(Sagan). The exploration of space began during the Cold War with the “space race” between the United States and the USSR. Both countries advanced in both math and sciences in order to compete with one another. 



        While watching lectures, it was interesting for me to also see the impact space has had on art and the media. For example, in television and movies, there are hundreds of space movies like Star Wars and Interstellar that have had a profound impact on humans. These movies have brought space closer to us than ever before. Another example is the space elevator which would attempt to bring the average person into space through a massive elevator. NASA believes “the basic concept of a space elevator is sound, and researchers around the world are optimistic one can be built” (Snowden). The idea of a space elevator seems crazy, but more realistic now as people like Jeff Bezos attempting to commercialize space flight.






Buckley, Sean. “The Impact of the Space Age on Film.” The Artifice, 19 May 2014, 

https://the-artifice.com/the-impact-of-the-space-age-on-film/. 


de Gouyon Matignon, Louis. “Legal Aspects of the Space Elevator Transportation System” 

Space Legal Issues, Mar 2019, https://www.spacelegalissues.com/space-law-legal-aspects-of-the-space-elevator-transportation-system/. 


Dryer, James. “Interstellar Review” Empire Online, Oct 2013, 

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/interstellar-review/. 


“Carl Sagan Ft. Hans Zimmer- Pale Blue Dot” Soundcloud, 2019,                     

            https://soundcloud.com/matthewerdmann/carl-sagan-ft-hans-zimmer-pale-blue-dot. 



“Power of Ten” Youtube, uploaded by Eames Office, 26 Aug 2010, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0. 


Sagan, Carl. “Pale Blue Dot.” Youtube, Uploaded by carlsagandotcom, 24 Mar 2009, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g .  


Snowden, Scott. “A colossal elevator to space could be going up sooner than you ever 

imagined” NBC News, 2 Oct 2018, 

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/colossal-elevator-space-could-be-going-sooner-you-ever-imagined-ncna915421. 


Vesna, Victoria. “8 Space.” Youtube, uploaded by UC Online, 29 Jul 2013, 


Comments

  1. Kaushik NareshMay 30, 2022 at 12:59 AM

    It's definitely going to be interesting to see what the commercialization of space travel will look like in the future, and we are definitely in a time where people are increasingly curious and interested in space, which is definitely driven by popular media that incorporates space into it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Event Blog 2: Jess Irish

Image
         Think of a bag of chips. You open up the bag, eat the chips and throw it away, but where is this away? “This Moral Plastik”, a film created by Jess Irish, talks about the global plastic problem and how a person never throws something “away” it just goes elsewhere. The plastic we “throw away” accumulates overtime into massive piles and gets into oceans and other parts of nature.The plastics created today will outlive all of us.            I feel like it’s easy to remove oneself from these global issues living in such a progressive area like Los Angeles. We are all guilty of it, myself included, I never think about these issues living in the bubble of UCLA, where the administration and student body are environmentally conscious. Today, while watching “This Moral Plastik”, I felt drawn back into the global plastic problem. This is a different perspective on plastics I have not seen before.       ...
Read more

Week 7: Neuroscience & Art

Image
             As a psychology major, this week’s topic of neuroscience and art was particularly interesting as the lectures and videos covering topics discussed in my psychology classes. In my psychology class last quarter, we learned about the different animals and organisms that humans share genes with. We share about 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, and about 60% with bananas, and during this week’s lecture, we learned that humans share 70% of our genes with sea sponges.            A researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara found that sea sponges have synapses, a very important part of the nervous system. Synapses are the cross section between nerve cells that allow these cells to pass information to eachother (Yong). Though sea sponges are immoble and almost lifeless, they can help neuroscientists understand the nervous system within humans and other organisms and its origins.    ...
Read more