Week 9 - Space + Art

Week 9 - Space + Art

A scene from Interstellar showing the spaceship "Endurance" soaring through space

Space has long been a fascination of mine. With the universe’s unimaginable vastness, one can’t help themselves but to ask whether one day we’ll find ourselves living up there amongst the stars. Science fiction and science fantasies on space exploration, such as Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, have helped expand our imagination on this matter, as well as expand our knowledge of understanding the universe as we know it.

Captain Kirk using the "Communicator"

But, what’s more, science fiction has also inspired a host of modern technologies and research. Jordan and Auernheimer examine the usage of Star Trek referrals in the ACM Digital Library, an online library containing a vast collection of research publications focused on computing machinery. They identify 232 relevant publications in the span from 1975 – 2017 discussing a broad variety of Star Trek technologies that reference Star Trek as a research inspiration. This includes devices such as Motorola’s StarTAC, the first ever clamshell (flip) mobile phone, that closely resembles Star Trek’s Communicator. Similarly, another group of researchers explore how sci-fi referrals are used in a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research conference (Jordan et al.). They find 175 sci-fi referrals in 83 papers contained with dataset of 5812 main proceedings and classify them into five different categories: 1) Theoretical Design Research, 2) New Interactions, 3) Human-Body Modification or Extension, 4) Human-Robot Interaction and Artificial Intelligence and 5) Visions of Computing in HCI.

Scientific illustrator Roen Kelly's rendition of a black hole

Indeed, science fiction writers have played important role in envisioning future technologies; however, one cannot forget about the incredible impact artists have had on imagining the many various phenomenon and objects found in space. Black holes, regions in space(time) in which no particles of light can escape from, have long been difficult to image (until very recently – see Akiyama et al.) . Therefore, scientists have often collaborated with artists to recreate renditions of black holes using knowledge of the known physics governing these immense objects.

Overall, space is an area in which we clearly see the overlap between the two cultures. With its huge expanse and many mysteries, the creative ingenuities of artists and literary intellectuals have heavily influenced the scientific realm. As of result, we see research and innovations that have transformed the world inspired by those simply enthralled by beauty of the night sky and the curiosity of the mysteries that lie within it.  

Sources

1. Akiyama, Kazunori, et al. “First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 875, no. 1, Apr. 2019, p. L1. iopscience.iop.org, doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7.
2. Hoffman, Jordan. “First Mobile Phone Call Made 41 Years Ago Today.” StarTrek.Com, 3 Apr. 2014, https://www.startrek.com/article/first-mobile-phone-call-made-41-years-ago-today.
3. Jordan, Philipp, et al. “Exploring the Referral and Usage of Science Fiction in HCI Literature.” ArXiv:1803.08395 [Cs], vol. 10919, Mar. 2018, pp. 19–38. arXiv.org, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-91803-7_2.
4. Jordan, Philipp, and Brent Auernheimer. “The Fiction in Computer Science: A Qualitative Data Analysis of the ACM Digital Library for Traces of Star Trek.” Advances in Usability and User Experience, edited by Tareq Ahram and Christianne Falcão, Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 508–20.
5. Klus, Helen. “Imagining the Future: Why Society Needs Science Fiction.” The Star Garden, 3 Apr. 2012, http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Why-society-needs-science-fiction.html.

Images

1. -        https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/interstellar-explained/
2. -        https://www.destination-innovation.com/how-startrek-inspired-an-innovation-your-cell-phone/
3. -        http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/2019/black-holes