The topic of space and art reminds me a lot of what we discussed before
about robotics and art. Just like how artists’ imagination about robots and
cyborgs leads to the development of science in that realm, people’s curiosity
and imagination about space encourages the exploration of space. In Chinese
mythology, the goddess of the Moon Chang’e is actually an “astronaut” from the
earth. She accidentally swallowed an immortality elixir and float towards the
Moon. Besides Change’e, it is said that there was an ancient Chinese official
called Wan Hu, who wanted to fly to the Moon. He created a rocket by fastening
47 large firecrackers to a chair. Though the story is said to be apocryphal by
Chinese scholars, it shows people’s wish to explore the universe.
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While people are able to explore the space nowadays, the wild
imagination of the existence of aliens becomes prevalent. Like cyborgs, aliens
of all kinds are main characters in lots of sci-fi movies. While the different
attitudes towards technology cause the different cyborgs in west and east,
people’s attitude towards alien and space, which are mysterious and unknown, is
pretty uniform. In both western and eastern movies, aliens can either be lovely
friends or great heroes or evil monsters. It shows people’s expectation and
fear about lives from the space. At the same time, the imagination is encouraging
the scientists to search for lives all over the universe.
Besides the imagination, art also comes from the universe we’ve already
explored. NASA released collection of records called “Symphonies of the
Planets” about 20 years ago. The records contain “music” of the planets in the
solar system. Those sounds were electromagnetic waves recorded by Voyager I and
II. Those pieces of “music” are really mind-blowing since they do bring
listeners to the space they have wondered about.
Ren Shuai Ying. “Chang’e Flying to the Moon”. Painting. 1955.
Admin. “Wan Who?”. Astronotes. Feb 10, 2012. Web. http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/wan-who.html
“Top 10 Good Movie Aliens”.
WatchMojo.com. Youtube. Web. Apr 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vyezsM9kEQ
“Top 10 Scariest Movie Aliens”. WatchMojo.com. Youtube. Web. Apr 18,
2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRa7KXxb4k
ritekid. “NASA Space Sounds”. Youtube. Web. Feb 10, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MmWeZHsQzs
Hi! I enjoyed your post. I know about the Chinese myth but I never knew that the goddess Moon Chang was considered the "astronaut" from earth. Your video on "NASA Space Sounds" was also really interesting. I think people are so limited by where they live, the things they see, the things they hear, that they aren't aware that there's a whole separate world out there. However, I think as our imagination continues grow into areas of the unknown, we will be able the get a better grasp of the universe outside our realm.
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