For some reason I didn’t realize until really recently how interesting/perfect it is that my theme for the Sketchbook Project is “Space” because I’ve been kind of obsessed with the concept lately. I guess I didn’t realize it because it’s taken the form of movies, not the “Serious” Research my obsessions usually take. Over the past few weeks I’ve watched Event Horizon, Sunshine, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Sphere (I also re-read Sphere the book because the movie reminded me of how much I liked it).

Yes, Sphere takes place underwater, but there is a spacecraft and alien object involved. Plus, I am most interested in the theme of the unknowable. And how mind blowing everything is and stuff doesn’t work the way we think it does. I think Sphere and Event Horizon touch closest to whatever it is I’m fumbling for – incidentally they were my favorites of the four, although Event Horizon gave me nightmares and I’ll never watch it again (I really didn’t think it was scary when I was watching it but when I went to bed I couldn’t get the images out of my mind). Sunshine is beautiful to watch but kind of falls flat, and I don’t know what the fuck was going on in 2001: A Space Odyssey (to be fair it was like 2am and I was falling asleep).

This post started to get really long and self-indulgent (more so than usual, anyway), so I’ll try and whittle it down and say that what I’m most interested in are two sides of the same coin – our inability to fathom something because it is so far beyond our experience that we just cannot comprehend it, and our need to explain things in some logical way, even if it means making up stories.

An example given in Sphere (the book, which is better than the movie, although I enjoy the movie too) is of an intelligent bacterium that comes across a human satellite, goes inside and eventually ends up in the fuel cells and is killed by the hydrogen. From the perspective of the bacterium, this thing would seem to be a trap of some kind. For us, it’s just a satellite and we’re not even aware that intelligent bacteria are out there. I love this idea of trying to explain something to ourselves, but since we can only ever explain things in terms of our experiences we can’t know for sure if we’re truly understanding something. Space is a great place to set this theme because there’s so much going on out there that bends the laws of physics, time, etc. Plus the possibility of alien life. Who knows what we’re missing. What if we’re the intelligent bacteria guysss!!11

We want answers and reasons but sometimes there aren’t any. Sometimes things just exist because they do and there really is no plot behind it, nefarious or otherwise — even if the thing in question seems to be evil. And maybe it is evil (like in Event Horizon) but that’s because it just is – it’s nothing personal. There, I think that’s the big thing for me: It’s nothing personal. Get over yourselves.

In light of all that crap I just made up, I changed my sketchbook idea from illustrating various concepts of space and did this instead:

Sorry for crappy photos, but it’s kind of a long book and I’d like to go to bed sometime tonight so I didn’t want to mess around too much getting an artsy~ foto.

I made it fold out so that the eye could follow it down – in my mind it was kind of like moving through space – although simply painting all the pages black would have been fine too. With each turn the reader would be hoping for some sort of ..thing, or explanation, but they would be disappointed! Bwa ha ha! (obvs the book can still be used in this manner so I’ve got that going on too). The pages picked up a little bit of texture from the crap that’s crusted to my drawing table, which adds a bit of interest and may imply that there is some kind of pattern in here. But there is not (I may even go over it again to make it darker).

Yeah I know I’m blabbing on and at the end of the day it’s just a book with black pages. Cut me some slack, it’s a big idea. Just like space (snap!).

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December 7th, 2009 |