Last Thursday night I went to the opening of the Spaceship Earth exhibition at the Customs House, Sydney. It shows what the satellites above us are photographing down here.
Apparently there are thousands of these things (satellites) taking snapshots in each moment much like the hundreds and thousands or is it millions of instagrammers on earth. It makes the phrase, As above, so below’ take on a whole new meaning.
It’s so worth a visit. The images were amazing. What surprised me most was how painterly and beautiful they were. There was one of a snowladen town that looked almost impressionist in its marks. Upon closer inspection the detail of the houses, streets and even snowtracks were easily deciphered. I was astounded at the detail.
Dr Stuart Minchin, Head of Geo Science opened the exhibition and talked about how the information that had been collected was more than a petabyte, new term for me. I’m still in terrabyte territory. It amused me that something so much larger than the earth (terra) sounds like something so much smaller, a little furry kitten, maybe. He suggested that to stack dvd of the images collected would create a mountain of dvds higher than Everest.
Curiously, it seems we have only recently been turning our gaze to study our planet. For a long time we had a more outward focus looking towards space.
Isn’t this a reflection of how we have been living our lives?
Focusing on everyone and everything else, what they are doing, comparing ourselves to them, on a micro and macro level.
And now we are discovering how extraordinary this planet we call home is.
It seems if your don’t look within you go without can be applied beyond our immediate selves.
If you are in Sydney go see it yourself. It’s on until July 20.
Vivid runs concurrently (until June 9). Always a wonderful festival that literally lights up the city by projecting lights shows onto buildings and bringing so many people to view it. It’s another excuse to get into the city.
Have a great weekend
x eilish