In the near future, the Sun has entered its last phase and is dying. A mission is sent from Earth into space, with the aim of sending ‘a payload’ into the sun and hopefully restart it from the inside. When the first mission fails, the space ship Icarus II attempts to complete the mission, although as the name suggests its mission may well be destined to fail and fall back to earth.
An Englishman’s prerogative, to small talk about the weather. It is a Danish-Icelandic Artist’s prerogative to only install half a sun in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.
Now that the ‘developed’ world is entirely dependent on software and electrical devices we can no longer look at space weather in the polar regions with awe, we must fear it for it will destroy our civilisation as we know it, just like it did in Canada in 1989.
1000 digitally manipulated versions of a single photograph played with a single sound saved 1000 times.
The world’s first industrial-sized power plant was built in Maadi, Egypt in 1913. The artist’s Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller presented their research into these forgotten histories and a recreated solar reflector at the 11th Cairo Biennale.
JG Ballard’s novel that chronicles a young British boy’s adolescence during the Second World War living under the Japanese occupation of Eastern China. The title is in reference to the etymological and mythological idea of Japan as the place from where the sun originates. (Empire of the Sun are also a shit Australian band.)
Tunnelled through an extinct volcano in Flagstaff, Arizona, Turrell’s Roden Crater is a monument to light and our perception of space. Akin to ancient summer solstice temples built for the worship of the sun it’s various tunnels and chambers line up to capture celestial movements and seasonal events as well as its flat top allowing the viewer to perceive the sky as an inverted sphere.
The ancient Egyptian sun god, who daily voyaged by solar boat from east to west through the heavens, like other ancient gods of creation worship of Ra by citizens ensured the god would perform their life giving task of keeping the sun up.
IT’S A POPULIST RED TOP RAG, INIT MATE. At least 50% made up…
The mythological embodiment of man’s desire to take to the skies, Icarus’s hubristic flight on wings made from wax and feathers was foiled by the sun, causing him to plumet to his death in the Mediteranean. Icarus is a pararble for both not breaking through one’s humility but also the parallel and essential desire to touch the limits of our corporal existence.
Limen 