Have you ever looked up at the stars on a clear night, thought of their distance from you, and said to yourself, “Wow?”
It’s an astounding thought. We are so small and so big at the same time. I thought I’d take a look at a couple of examples in art and science that have reminded me of the gravity of perspective.
Christopher Nolan’s film "Interstellar" and Alfonso Cuarón’s "Gravity" are recent films that I really enjoyed. They are both based on an immense amount of scientific reality.
In the case of "Gravity," Cuarón attempted to recreate the emotional experience of astronauts in space
In the case of "Interstellar," all of the science in the film is based on the research of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who is also an executive producer on the film. Granted, a lot of the concepts are mere science fiction. However, the film itself brings the audience to a place of wonder and humility in the view of what we do not yet understand while instilling the motivation to discover and learn.
Nolan and Cuarón highlight the dichotomy of our insignificance and our importance in existence. They bring us out of our worlds for a short period of time to illustrate for us a birds-eye perspective of a bigger picture.
Disney’s "The Lion King" goes in the opposite direction in showing us the world we do live in.
The animators at the Walt Disney Animation Studios went to vast lengths to portray the parts of the world we don’t experience.
We see our place in the circle of life down here on Earth. We are able to see the distance from the dust particles on the ground to the stars in the sky of the “great kings of the past.”
Eric Whitacre recently wrote an orchestral piece called "Deep Field," which was inspired by the Hubble Telescope Deep Field images. In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope focused on a small patch of space in the Big Dipper for 10 days. When they received the footage, they were able to see thousands of galaxies in other parts of the universe.
Whitacre partnered with software development company The Nerdery to build a mobile app that allows audiences to interact during the performance. In a certain part of the piece, the app generates a certain section of the images and plays a piece of sonic beauty through the smartphone speakers. With only the lights from the iPhone screens, and a choir dispersed through the hall, the Royal Albert Hall became a musical and visual model of the universe in all of it’s glory.
I really wish I could have been a part of such a humbling experience - to play a part in such a large work of art. Every person in the hall had a small part to play in visualizing our existence from a different perspective through art.
Art can do great things for our minds, our perception and our emotion.
Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous painting, "Starry Night." Van Gogh painted this in his room of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in France due to his breakdown and self-mutilation of his ear.
"Starry Night" features swirling clouds and eddies of stars.
Over the years since Van Gogh painted this, scientists have been astounded at how accurately it depicts the mathematically inexplicable phenomenon of turbulence.
Turbulence is a concept in fluid dynamics that is categorized by chaotic property changes. In 2004 the Hubble Space telescope discovered the eddies of dust and gas around a star that reminded them of the painting.
Upon observing the painting further, scientists discovered a pattern of turbulent fluid structures in Van Gogh’s painting close to Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov’s equation for turbulent flow.
They also noticed the pattern in other paintings by Van Gogh during his period of psychotic agitation. After observing paintings from calmer periods of his life, they found no patterns.
It is outstanding to realize that Van Gogh, during one of his most psychologically turbulent periods of intense suffering, was able to perceive and artistically depict one of the most supremely difficult concepts nature has ever brought before mankind.
Artists can bring scientific perspective to natural phenomenons, scientists can bring inspiration to creators of art, and they can work together to bring these experiences back to us.
I don’t know if there is a better way to illuminate the gravity of perspective. Try it. Maybe you’ll gain a new perspective on your journey.
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