originally published: Friday, April 28, 2006
Megascale art
According to Freeman Dyson, we have "good scientific reasons for taking seriously the possibility that life and intelligence can succeed in molding this universe of ours to their own purposes", and the purpose of an intelligent race would be either scinetific or artistic. In other words, they can try to modify their environments either because of their scientific or artistic ambitions.It is stated by Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin in their book entitled The Five Ages of the Universe that there were four important size scales:
- planets
- stars
- galaxies
- the universe
We
can create a scale about the possible physical levels of art based on
these categories. It would be easy to find similarities between them
and the Kardashev Tipology.
Subplanetary level of art: traditional architecture; sculpture; land art, etc. It means that we do not modify a whole planet.
Planetary level of art: modifying a whole planet or moon. Artist Frei Otto proposed
to envelope the whole surface of our planet with a tent structure in
1962. We can imagine a moon modified to fulfill an artitic idea, for
example.
Star level of art: we could modify the spectrum of a star for aesthetic purposes, or we could mention Luc Arnold's idea.
He suggested trying to detect "the transit of artificial planet-size
objects" in distant solar systems to find alien civilizations, but why
not to use those objects to compose a mobile artwork?
Star art is observable from another Solar System.
Galactic level of art:
obviously, it means the change the structure of a whole galaxy or the
distribution of the stars in it. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler
studied the theoretical opportunities to rearrange the stars of our
Galaxy.
Universe level of art: Andrei Linde, the father of the inflationary theory asked whether we could create new universes. We can ask whether it would be possible to create an entire universe as an artwork.
According
to Arpad Bak, similarly to transgenic art, megascale art raises ethical
questions. For example, it would become a serious question in a distant
future whether we would have rights to modify the environment of a race
for aesthetic purposes, or ad absurdum to create an entire universe
populated with intelligent beings.
According to Arpad Bak, similarly to transgenic art, megascale art
raises ethical questions. For example, it would become a serious
question in a distant future whether we would have rights to modify the
environment of a race for aesthetic purposes, or ad absurdum to create
an entire universe populated with intelligent beings.