Sessions

Negative Space: Reframing personal space as a perceptual commons
Allgood, Clarice
Atlanta Georgia, 2009

Drawing broadly from artistic traditions, environmental philosophy, social critique and experience, this paper examines the undefined space between and around the individual and her environment, outlining its aesthetic, ethical and practical dimensions. As in art, our environmental negative space is conceptualized as a substantiated element, essential to the overall harmony and balance of everyday life. By naming this nothing a something, a "perceptual commons," I address the multisensory and psychological assault such a conceptual void promotes and, in conclusion, outline concomitant notions of individual rights and duties attached to the concept of "commons." Lent substantive status, negative space is the assumed phenomenal medium by which we transmit cultural and idiosyncratic values, defining who we are. While accessible to all, this medium is loosely regulated at best. The more manipulated, programmed, and standardized the space between and around us becomes, we can only expect that our relation to the world to be more manipulated, programmed and standardized. The glare and blare of the privatized perceptual dump, the neon boom of mass produced plastic banality—critiques concerning the neglect of this compositional element that holds you and I together are many. I offer yet one more. By refocusing attention on our shared negative space, the notion of a perceptual commons further delineates this space as resource and provides a unifying framework by which to discuss the broad range of emergent perceptual ills that constricts the horizon of creative, authentic experience and meaningful communication among humans and the more than human world. In expanding the expectation of the rights and duties attendant to our sense of commons to phenomena, we have yet another avenue to curtail the squander, pollution and exploitation of our senses so that we may begin to compose a richer, more satisfying balance in our shared negative space.


The Dutch landscape is built on the abundant sky
Etteger, Rudi van, MA

Landscape architect and Philosopher
Assistant professor at Wageningen University and Researchcentre
Centrum Landschap, Gaia gebouw
Droevendaalse Steeg 3, Postbus 47 6700 AA Wageningen
tel. +31(0)317-483472 , fax. +31(0)317-482166

The Netherlands have a special relationship with the sky. The sky features heavily in Dutch Landscape paintings. It is said to have been inspired by what is called the Dutch light. In my paper I would like to illuminate the specific characteristics of the Dutch landscape and the Dutch sky and the response of Dutch people and specifically artists to the sky.

The Dutch landscape has a characteristic openness and flatness that invites the sky into the landscape. It takes up a large proportion of our visual field in normal embodied perception. The eye trained for finding contrasts, finds them only in the sky, not in the endless grasslands of the Dutch polders.

The sky is illuminated by the light reflected back from the great amount of water- surfaces in the landscapes. Every ditch, every pond, every lake illuminates the sky. Joseph Beuys complained about the building of the polders in the IJssellake, saying that it took the light from the skies.

The position of the landscape on the edge of the continent keeps our skies alive for most of the time. Winds produce an ever-changing spectacle which can fascinate us like only the sea and fire can. We can sit and watch and get lost in the shapes that come alive and go and come alive again.

The Dutch people have no other choice but to face the sky. Riding their bikes against the wind, the sky takes shape not only visibly but in a haptic sense of the word. They used the sky and it’s movement to trade by ship into the far corners of the world and drained the land by windpower. Its artists have sold the sky in oil and linen.
 

Quantum Myth: The Gloaming as An Aesthetic, Spiritual and Physical Manifestation of the Metaphysical Mysteries
Farina, Christine

Associate Professor of Communication Studies and
Program Coordinator, Communication Department
The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
23 Leeds Point Road, Galloway New Jersey 08205
christine.farina@stockton.edu or cfarinac@gmail.com

Twilight, or "the Gloaming," is the in-between time when the sky seems to fall down onto earth in an animated hour of changing light. It is the time of passage, from lightness to darkness or darkness to light that speaks to our most primal, unconscious understanding of the nature of being. It is the time of magic in global myths and
folklore, and the space where "Once Upon a Time" exists. The gloaming reveals the presence of the metaphysical mysteries.
The aesthetic sublimity of the gloaming is likened to the nature of sacred knowledge as a different light, a light that illuminates from within a being rather than the light of an external energy. Much as scattered particles of the upper atmosphere light the earth's lower atmosphere through the indirect reflection of an unseen sun, the
>gloaming makes the sky itself luminous. This can be observed as a metaphor for the phantom nature of reflections and how what we perceive consciously might actually conceal from us our intuitive inner-sight. When the sky meets the earth it is possible to experience the gloaming on a multi-sensory level, receiving the
enlightening experience of the creative force as it is found through art or nature.
Because it is the constant and changing energy of creation that informs aesthetic value and separates imitation from art, being submerged in the experience of the gloaming allows for the aesthetic perception of a physical manifestation of the mythical mind. Aesthetic appreciation of nature is therefore not limited to meaning created by a framing influence. It is in fact the experiential submersion into the gloaming that catalyzes aesthetic appreciation, which is then informed by the fluidity of the frame of one's sensory experiences of Nature.

 

Sonic Movements: Foghorns, Sirens and Intervals
Hällsten, Johanna, Dr. – Loughborough University, UK

This paper arises out of an interest in location-responsive art and the creation of space and sound through movement. The paper aims to investigate this through the Japanese concept of Ma, with particular emphasis on the notion of interval and duration in the production and experience of soundscapes.

The concept of Ma, understood as interval, is an instant wherein time and space both collapse and create a moment of rest. This is significant in the development of spaces wherein we are able to both feel at ease and become rejuvenated on our transition towards a particular space, place or event. Ma is closely related to, and some say stems from, musical theory where it denotes the space in-between the notes in a score. Ma could be understood as opening up, creating a space, revealing the essence of an instant and crucially that moment when we draw a breath of air.

I am especially interested in how atmospheric conditions, in conjunction with spatial milieus creates very particular sonic landscapes and experiences. Thus they are momentary and fleeting, despite the objects producing the sound are constant and determined. For example, the foghorn or the sound of a fire engine moving through a city or the countryside creates a specific temporary sonic experience that in turn creates a specific movement and duration to that experience.

Therefore this paper seeks to explore the relationship between Ma and soundscapes, within the built and natural environment and its impacts on the creation of space through movement, where the core aim is to establish different ways of being with(in) the world.

New Theologies and New Heavens
Pauliina Kainulainen

In Western theology there are signs of a major shift towards a more holistic way of interpreting the Christian tradition. This shift has implications to the understanding of heaven. Criticism has been voiced to so called ”heavenism” - the spiritual superiority of heaven that leads to devaluing of the earth and daily life.

The theological renewal can be seen for example in 1) the search for ecologically sensitive interpretations of the Bible and the tradition and 2) in the emphasis on the meaning of place in theology. These both are connected to 3) the new awareness of how bodily religion Christianity is. The old distortions in attitudes towards bodiliness must be overcome and return to those elements in the tradition that value human body, material reality and the earth. This means also listening to the contributions of 4) feminist theology. A holistic theology that does justice to the message of Jesus of the gospels must be post-patriarchal theology.

This kind of re-evaluting the foundations of theology challenge the prevailing concepts of God. The God of the so called classical theism is distant and passive. Today many theologians search for metaphors that can better meet the challenges we face. One traditional view of God is called pan-en-theism: God is in everything and everything is in God. This is an intimate image that combines the trancendent and immanent dimensions of God.

Heaven in this kind of thinking is also at the same time a transcendent and immanent reality. Heaven and earth touch each other as in the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is already realized in daily life when a person's relationships to God, to oneself, to other people and to the earth are healed. But the Kingdom will be perfected only in the world to come. The future vision of hope tells about the time of new heavens and new earth, where everyone, including humans and animals live in peace and harmony.

Universe – Globe – Man: Dimensions and Dilemmas
Kontturi, Osmo A.
dosentti, Tampereen yliopisto, Aluetiede ja Jyväskylän Yliopisto, Biologia
adjunct professor, Universities of Tampere (Regional Sciences) and
Jyväskylä (Applied Geography)
Meks Ky, Maisemaekologinen Konsultointi ja Suunnittelu,
LEC, Landscape Ecological Consulting, Limited Partnership
Riihikatu 19 as. 5, Fi-28120 Pori, Finland
GSM: +358-(0)50-5950 127, Email: osmokontturi at dnainternet.net

The universe, the globe and man are terms, which form the trinity. It is possible to approach them in the exogenetic or endogenetic way. Principally, man is in all probability the starting point of everything, because man is the only being here, who understands and realizes his neighbourhood and his home on earth, the gaia, the vastness of universe.
Primarily, this presentation is about the genesis and the structure of the universe and the globe. Also the theories and the concepts and the stages of development in the background of their genetic declaration are dealt with. Secondly, a brief, general survey over man´s evolutionary development as an animal species is introduced.
Besides, a scientific historical review, which deals with philosophers of the Antiquity and the celebrities of the so-called Roman period. Also philosophers, who exceeded the Middle Age darkness and the representatives of the modern multispectral sciences are discussed. The starting point of this presentation is man and his intelligence and it is discussed mainly in a traditional way of natural sciences.

In the summary I am trying to answer the following questions based on modern knowledge:
1.In what way is everything originated ?
2.Which forces are behind the genesis and the evolution ?
3.What will the universe look like in the future or will the evolution go on as it is or will a new kind of the development take place ?

I will also briefly discuss the question of the exogenic approach or is there a supernatural force behind verything.


Vortices in Virtual Space: Poetry and Painting in Descartes’ Cosmological Fable, The World
Leonard Daniel, Ph.D., Columbia University
Visiting Assistant Professor, French
Adelphi University
Languages and International Studies

Although Descartes is perhaps best known for his epistemological and metaphysical rigor, and enforcing a substantial dualism that sets serious limits on the imagination, his natural philosophical writings on the physical universe and human perception obey a different and more divergent logic. Unpublished during his lifetime, his World and Man set forth a grand, mechanistic vision of the cosmos in the form of a “fable,” based on the creative models of both poetry and painting. Descartes’ hypothetical universe is necessarily a fabrication of the imagination, since his explanations depend on the contingent perspectives of the human senses and the limited permutations of colliding particles. In demanding that physical hypotheses be representable in both visual and narrative form, Descartes subjects them to aesthetic criteria and laws of verisimilitude congruent with the operations of the imagination itself. The formation of a new universe of planets and stars in space unfolds as a dynamic spectacle, painted before our eyes in many dimensions and from many points of view; however, its accuracy and explanatory power can only ultimately be verified by an exact comparison with its model – the appearances of our own world and its skies as seen by an embodied viewer on the surface of the earth. By remaking the world as a “fable,” composed according to the self-organization of matter in motion, and by appealing to human perception and the imagination as the guarantors of its accuracy, Descartes strips the skies of their traditional mythological and metaphysical prestige – we would expect nothing less from a scientific revolutionary. However, his insistence on placing the human arts of poetry and painting at the heart of his new, mechanistic cosmos also gives a new and central role to aesthetics and the imagination, as tools for remaking the world and heavens before the eyes of the understanding.


Industrialism, Science, and the Transformation of the Heavens
Maskit, Jonathan

Denison University, Department of Philosophy
Granville, OH 43023, USA
Phone: +1 740.412.1151, Email: Maskit@denison.edu
While much has changed since ancient times, the sky would seem to be the same. I argue that not only is the sky we encounter fundamentally different from that of the ancient world, how we encounter it has changed as well. One change in how we perceive the sky is rooted in the scientific revolution. The sky is no longer the overarching heavens signifying the presence (or absence) of divinity, but rather an earthly atmosphere composed of gases and a collection of stars dispersed across a seemingly limitless emptiness. A second change results from the industrial revolution. If the scientific revolution changed how we perceive the sky, the industrial revolution changed the sky itself.
The scientific revolution’s reconceptualization of the sky is reflected in the 18th century’s interest in the sublime, which, in reaction to science’s disenchantment of the heavens, seeks nevertheless to find some value in them. Industrialism, through the introduction of entirely new types of contaminants into the air and the re-release of millions of years of stored CO2, has fundamentally changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere itself. Simultaneously industrialism has introduced entirely new phenomena into the skyscape, most dramatically the billows of smoke and steam released from factories, vehicles, cooling towers, and airplanes.
How are we to appreciate these new skies? I contrast two possible approaches: Allen Carlson’s positive environmental aesthetics and Heidegger’s invocation of romantic poetry, finding both wanting. It is unclear how an appeal to climatology could provide useful guidance to us in aesthetically appreciating the sky while the poetry of Hölderlin can only help us appreciate a sky we no longer have. Instead a third approach that takes account of the sky’s history while looking towards its future is more promising for doing justice to the two types of transformation mentioned above.

The heavenly Reindeer - the story of a constellation
Osmo Pekonen

The French mathematician Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759)
led a famous expedition of Académie des Sciences to Lapland in 1736-37
to measure the shape of the Earth. The expedition established that our
planet is slightly flattened at poles due to its rotation as predicted
by Isaac Newton's general theory of gravity. The measurement which was
based on astronomy was a triumph of 18th century science. Maupertuis'
co-traveler in Lapland was the astronomer Pierre Charles Le Monnier
(1715-99) who wanted to perpetuate the memory of the expedition by
naming a new constellation, that of the Reindeer (Tarandus vel Rangifer).
It was located not far from the North Star, between the Cepheus and the
Camelopardalis. The heavenly Reindeer is seen galopping in several
ancient astronomical maps but it has later been abolished. It is an
example of forgotten constellations which have a rich story to tell.

 

Exploration of Sublime in Celestial Experience
Aysegul Sentug

Etymologically, aesthetics comes from perception (aisthesis). Celestial experience involves sensory perception, an aesthetic factor is necessarily present in this experience, and its satisfaction is one of the momentous gratifications of human life. All of the atmospheric experiences such as olfactory experiences related to petrichor, visual experiences related to phantasmagorical shapes of clouds, the audio experiences related to thunder are aesthetics. Celestial aesthetic values concern not only the splendid celestial experiences and the appreciation of the natural beauties of the skies but also the recognition of the aesthetic values embodied in the the need to develope criteria for the aesthetic judgment of environment. The pleasure that is obtained from celestial experiences is formed by different aesthetic senses. One of the supreme senses that celestial experiences are related to is the aesthetic sublime. As Edmund Burke mentions, it is not only beauty that gives pleasure, pleasure is obtainable also from terror and from the obscure. The deluge could be one of the best celestial sublime examples for Burke. In Kantian aesthetics, the sublime is explicitly used referring to nature. Kant does not see sublimity as a terrifying phenomenon but focused more on sublime parts of the human subject and how it is prompt by the nature in human subject. In particular, the role of imagination and impossibility of representing infinity are central in Kantian sublime. For Kant, there are two kinds of nature; vast nature and powerful nature. Vast nature is related to a mathematical sublime since it is beyond calculation and the infinite sky is a good representation for this. The second kind of sublime is the dynamic sublime which powerful nature represents it in atmospheric events such as thunderstorms. Exploration of the sublime in celestial experience is one of the greatest aesthetic examinations. In the rest of this paper, I will therefore examine the aesthetic value of the celestial experiences with particular relevance to the sublime.
Etymologically, the term sublime comes from Latin sublimes which means high, elevation, and exalted. The term in philosophy refers to something great and beyond comparison and calculation which is vast in magnitude. It is not only physical greatness but also intellectual and metaphysical. The sublime astonishes people, makes them submit and respect. The ancient philosopher Longinus was the first person who gives an account of the sublime, in his sublime rhetoric. It reemerges as a keyword in 18th century philosophy, where it is examined as an aesthetic experience, which involves the coexistence of terror, fear, horror and risk with delight, joy and pleasure. These feelings can be prompted by aesthetic sublime via celestial experiences. The sublime is used in relation to terror and religious awe as well as for describing objects in nature and celestial figures such as the vast sky, splendid atmospheric experiences and the infinite. Some philosophers such as Lyotard believe that the sublime can not be used to aesthetisise terror whereas other philosophers like Burke think terror and destruction are sublime themselves. Thunderstorm is a sublime event with which terror and horror could be aligned. Nonetheless, the sublime has a nobling quality, it reinforces the spirit. It is overwhelming and this greatness is often used in referring to nature and art.
I will say more about the sublime as found in Burke and Kant because they are the most influential theorists about the concepts of the sublime. The sublime became as key term in 18th century philosophy. For Burke, it is one of the fundamental concepts in aesthetics. He thinks that the sublime produces astonishment, awe, respect and reverence. It is kind of delightful terror and it belongs to self-preservation. Some qualities such as darkness, blackness have sublime in their nature for Burke. He sees darkness as a cause of the sublime and he considered the sublime as a sort of manifestation of pain or terror. There is no safety in darkness; it seems to be vast and infinite. In a dark and misty night, you can not protect yourself and you are not able to know where the enemy is. Burke claims that the idea of ghosts even comes from the darkness as a being originally the idea of terror. Burke is empiricist and not being able to experience something causes frustration and fear. In the dark, you are not able to perceive things which make the link between the idea of darkness and the sublime. For Burke, our strong response to sublimity is based on our sense of self-preservation. Burke thinks there is nothing more sublime than destruction of the self and the sublime is linked to the fear of death or self-destruction. Therefore a sublime delight results when we face objects which we cannot deal with but we can not stop ourselves encountering with them. Those overpowering objects which could be stated as sublime stimulate body and mind and they are triggered by our sense of self-preservation. Thunderstorms, floods are overpowering celestial experiences which provoke our sense of immediate self-preservation. Burke explains why darkness is terrible in these lines:

“IT may be worth while to examine how darkness can operate in such a manner as to cause pain. It is observable, that still as we recede from the light, nature has so contrived it, that the pupil is enlarged by the retiring of the iris, in proportion to our recess. Now, instead of declining from it but a little, suppose that we withdraw entirely from the light; it is reasonable to think, that the contraction of the radial fibers of the iris is proportionably greater; and that this part may by great darkness come to be so contracted as to strain the nerves that compose it beyond their natural tone; and by this means to produce a painful sensation”

His biological explanation shows how a celestial experience causes a sublime effect on human body. He even makes a direct correlation between the “ill effects of bad weather” on human nature via human sensation. He claims that

“The ill effects of bad weather appear often no otherwise, than in a melancholy and dejection of spirits; though without doubt, in this case, the bodily organs suffer first and the mind through these organs.”

In Kantian aesthetics, the sublime is explicitly used referring to nature. As I mentioned before, Kant does not see the sublime as a terrifying phenomenon at all but focused more on sublime parts of the human subject and the striving of human subject in front of the nature. In particular, the role of imagination and impossibility of representing infinity come up in Kantian sublime. Hence his notion of sublime is also great exploration for environmental aesthetics, particularly celestial experience since the man’s striving for understanding nature is the key concept. For Kant, there are two kinds of nature; vast nature and powerful nature. Vast nature is defined in terms of mathematical sublime since it is beyond calculation and boundless celestial bodies are the best examples of what prompts this notion of sublime such as infinite sky and immeasurable clouds. The second kind of sublime is the dynamic sublime which powerful nature represents and dark, misty clouds are good examples here. He claims that our imagination fails to represent the infinity although we struggle or strive for representing it but necessarily fail. But the failing makes us aware our idea of infinity goes beyond what we can represent. For Kant, the infinity of time and space is beyond our imagination. We can measure moments but we can not measure the time itself as a whole. We only have the idea of the whole of time that we strive for measuring since it is beyond our calculation and imagination and that is what makes the idea of whole time create sublime feeling in us. Atmospheric bodies are non-measurable; we can measure the moisture with hygrometer or the velocity of the wind with anemometer yet we can not calculate them as whole entities since we have limited knowledge about celestial nature both in scientific and metaphysical ways. For Kant, all we have is the feeling of sublimity and mathematical sublime presents the vastness of the nature that our imagination fails to represent.
The exploration of the celestial sublime in Burke and Kant because the way they would relate celestial bodies to their notions of sublime are contrary to each other. As I mentioned before, for Burke, the infinite dark sky of the night would connote fear of death, horror and being insignificant as nothing in front of the majestic darkness, due to the self-destruction and our fear of death are the most sublime event for him. On the other hand, Kant expresses his admiration to infinite dark sky of the night in these words:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily reflection is occupied with them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me. Neither of them need I seek and merely suspect as if shrouded in obscurity or rapture beyond my own horizon; I see them before me and connect them immediately with my existence. “

“The starry heaven above me” means that Kant has a completely positive interpretation of the celestial beauty of incommensurable nature, in which it produces the same admiration and awe as human morality. For Kant, these two realms, nature and freedom, are grounded in human reason itself and the human subject determines the laws of nature. But the problem is that it seems to go beyond the laws of nature, for instance, powerful natural events such as hurricanes that we can’t fully explain. And this causes the feeling of sublime in human subject. It is not the fearful dark sky which Burke mentions but rather a bright, starry sky which reminds us of heaven and the pleasure and joy within celestial beauty. Kant unites the moral autonomy with the “starry heavens”, images of celestial beauty in a positive meaning of night whereas Burke associates darkness with pain.
An optimist interpretation of sublime celestial beauty is represented in Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night, in which the heaven is seen in the bright night sky, while the church steeple tries to touch the heaven, the cypress tree is the one that reaches it. If it is interpreted in a Kantian way, that would mean the moral autonomy and nature are immeasurable realms which human nature can not grasp them but tries to present the infinite sublime heaven by trying to reach it via religion and nature and this striving makes it more sublime. In Burkean interpretation of The Starry Night, the religion, which is based on fear and guilt, could be the reason of sublime event itself.
There is a split in man vs. nature in both Burke and Kant whereas the third exploration of sublime in celestial experience would be Spinoza’s account in which man and nature are united under the notion of substance. Spinoza’s substance overcomes this split in divine vs. nature since the sublime is just an expression in substance. Hence, à la Spinoza, the interpretation of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night would be neither like pessimistic Burkean sublime nor like Kantian human vs. nature sublime, but rather a fusion of elements in one concept, the substance, God. Since man is part of the substance, namely the nature, the sublime is only an expression in the substance. Hence the celestial experience is part of human nature, which is part of the nature itself.
As a conclusion, the exploration of sublime through the celestial experience could be presented both in positive and negative ways and also in Spinozist united way, yet it can not change the significance of the celestial experience in human sensations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baruch, Spinoza, A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Texts, trans. and ed. Edwin Curley (Princeton University Press, 1994)
Burke, Edmund, Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, trans. and ed. James Boulton (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, ed. and trans. P. Gruyer and A.W. Wood, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)


Sky – remarks on the impossible stage space
Unt, Liina (1977) is a scenographer and theatre researcher. She pursues her doctoral degree in University of Arts and Design Helsinki. She has published articles on the aesthetics of landscape, environmental scenography, and the aesthetics of play.

While most of the cardinal elements – water, fire, ground - are easily made visible on stage, the only one that is present all the time – air - , poses a problem of representation. Even in terms of conveying everyday experience of (natural) environment, sky as space fails to be represented. The stage floor - the ground - can be covered with artificial or natural materials (sand, soil, water, wood etc) to represent a variety of its natural counterparts. A host of
3-dimensional objects can be used to represent almost anything that stands on the ground. Sky is an enigma, it is easy to imitate moonlight, but not the space it radiates from/through.
In the history of European stage design, the most common solution has been the use of the backdrop to represent a painted sky. In many languages (German, Russian, Dutch) backdrop is called „horizon“, which indicates that the painted cloth draws the line between the horizontal ground and the vertically shown sky. Indeed, in Estonian language the term for backdrop is „lavataevas“, literally „stage sky“.
While pictorial representation has given way to 3D representation, sky as a specific environment is still even more of a challenge. For one, although it is part of everyday experience, this experience tend to be pictorial and thus limited. In the context of environmental aesthetics and environmental scenography (sensu Aronson) that aim at giving a multisensory experience of the theatrical environment, sky (heaven) as a place of action presents a puzzle. How to convey an experience one doesn’t have? The paper discusses cases from Estonian theatre (eg Kivirähk’s „Theatre Paradise“) on sky as a stage environment.
The most popular and common solution in contemporary theatre is to make the sky literally invisible. Using gestures, speech, composition it is suggested to be above the stage, out of sight. In this case of representation, we can see the sky through the reactions of the actors. On stage, human being becomes the mirror, or even the representer, for the sky.


The Sky reflects in Water
Oksiuta, Zbigniew
Boltensternstr. 16, Atelierhaus V6
50735 Köln
T 0049 221 7604745
F 0049 221 8608772
www.oksiuta.de

Over millions of years the Sky above us works as a shield that protects our planet against the deadly cosmos. The earthly water and a tiny layer of soil that is sheltered by the atmosphere, are flooded with sunrays, create a huge spherical reactor. It is a cosmic womb, which cradles Life.

Earthly evolution took place within the field of gravity. All processes and forms depend on this force. Gravity protects Life by keeping the atmosphere in place. At the same time gravity imprisons Life on the planet.
But here on Earth, underwater, there is a special state of floating in which gravity is unnoticeable. This is the neutral buoyancy phenomena, the physical foundations for the development and morphology of all organisms and the key achievement of evolution. Life takes advantage of this state and frees itself from the impact of gravity.

We have to use this phenomenon and create a new biological future in which living processes could happen not only on a nanoscale but also on a macroscale. Food, tools and shelters could be breed as living organisms.

I am sure Life itself is the best ambassador in space. Not computers, not robots, not even astronauts, but DNA information with millions of years of the evolutionary experiences can make the settling of Life in the cosmos possible.

Let’s imagine a swarm of microscopic spaceships, each the size of a cell, drawing away from a blue planet. Each ship contains complete knowledge of evolution, not in the form of a lifeless computer, but in the form of real Life, DNA. The human genome weighs around 40 picograms. What force is required to launch such a mass into circumterrestrial orbit?
I believe that natural phenomena, auroras, and magnetic fields could help us overcome earth’s gravity and seed life in space.



Questions regarding the programme contents and offers for papers can be addressed to Professor Yrjö Sepänmaa, University of Joensuu, Department of Environmental Aesthetics, PL 111, 80101, Joensuu, Finland, tel.: +358 (0)13 251 4348, e-mail: yrjo.sepanmaa@joensuu.fi. Other queries should be addressed to Project Secretary Ms Lisbe Svahn (lisbe.svahn@pkky.fi).