Rosetta: the ambition to turn science fiction into science fact

Tags

cosmos, creation, elements, FILM, ROSETTA

Imagine: with a wasteland as their canvas, a Master and his young Apprentice set about turning rubble into planets and moons, asteroids and comets. They levitate the worlds above their heads, spinning them in orbit around their symbolic Sun.

“What is the key to life on Earth?” asks the Master.

The Apprentice shakes her head. The answer is obvious: water.

“For a long time, the origins of water, and indeed life on our planet remained an absolute mystery. So we began searching for answers beyond Earth,” the Master continues.

“In time we turned to comets. One trillion celestial balls of dust, ice, complex molecules, left over from the birth of our Solar System. Once thought of as messengers of doom and destruction, and yet so enchanting.

“And we were to catch one: a staggeringly ambitious plan.”

Science fiction? No – science fact.

More: HERE

And if you are curious, the making of ‘Ambirtion’

Byrhtferth’s Diagram; Computus Diagrams

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diagram, divination, elements, medieval manuscript, months

Byrhtferth’s Diagram; Computus Diagrams
From the Thorney Computus
Cambridgeshire, England; ca. 1102–10
Saint John’s College, Oxford, MS 17

This volume is an album of texts and graphic material organized around computus (literally, “computation”), the medieval science of reckoning time and fixing the dates of ecclesiastical feasts, particularly Easter. Byrhtferth’s digram is a visual meditation on the cosmic and religious resonances of computus, its subject the harmony of the twelve months and four elements, of time and the material world. The tables on the opposite page show a series of diagrams used for determining lunar cycles, days of the week, and divination diagrams based on numerical values assigned to the letters.

http://www.blog.metmuseum.org/penandparchment/exhibition-images/cat2807v_8rr7_49e/

The Apartments of the Elements

Tags

architecture, art, Cristofano Gherardi, earth, elements, fire, florence, Giorgio Vasari, Italy, paintings, Palazzo Vecchio, Saturn, Uranus, venus, water

Allegory of Water – Birth of Venus (Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi)

The Apartments of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy

The Apartment of the Elements consists of five rooms that were the private quarters of Cosimo I. The walls contain allegorical frescoes depicting Fire, Water, Earth and (on the ceiling) Saturn.

This is the suite of rooms that were used by Cosimo I de’ Medici and his wife Eleanor of Toledo while they lived at Palazzo Vecchio. They are ornately decorated in grand Renaissance style. Giorgio Vasari took over the decoration of these rooms upon the death of Battista del Tasso. This was his first commission for the Medici, beginning a long and very profitable relationship.

Allegory of Earth – Fruits of Earth Offered to Saturn (Cristofano Gherardi)

Allegory of Fire – Vulcans Forge (Cristofano Gherardi)

The Mutiliation of Uranus by Saturn (Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi)

http://www.digital-images.net, http://www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Google_Art_Project_works_in_Palazzo_Vecchio_Museum