sky lexicon  






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Hyperfield



Navigational maps have existed long before GPS has. The relationality between body and environment, the sky that encompasses Earth as both imaginary and common territory, was approached, lived and mapped in other ways, conveying a closer relationship with the phenomenology of the world around us, than today’s datafied view through screens offers.

The atmosphere, as a common space we all breathe and design, is arguably one of these phenomenological objects. Just a very large, transparent and immersive one, happening at multiple resolutions at once. Timothy Morton calls objects that withhold themselves, yet are present on all scales at once, Hyperobjects.(Morton, 2015)




This website functions as a fieldguide, while offering insight into the development of a critical cartography of the sky, through a selection of Sky Inversions, situated practices and Terminologies. These practices are mapped onto a transscalar 3D architectural model, where analytical findings are situated through methodical practices. The act of drawing becomes a research method, both reproducing the scalability of a datafied world, and conter-mapping it through situated, hand-made practices. From the flattened atmosphere pierced through screens in the overview effect, these practices and analysis look to re-enconter the sky, looking from down upwards. (Tsing, 2012)


The hybrid term naming this environment, ‘Hyperfield’, was developed through Timothy Morton’s concept of Hyperobject and Iwaniszewski’s description of the sky as a social field. (Iwaniszewski, 2011; Morton, 2013)
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Mapping encoded relationalities conveying scalar irreconcilabilities between readings of the sky as imaginary and territory, is the purpose of my research and open to the public to participate and share sky media, terminologies and practices to understand what has gone missing in the recent, unnoticed translation of the conceptual space of the sky to a real, colonized atmosphere.

Sky Inversions are the analytical operation decoding the internal scalar logic of a contemporary sky medium through architectural drawing, revealing the scalar break embedded with the medium’s own encoding logic. Historical precedents enter instrumentally to name the suppressed principle of the scalar break.

SKY INVERSIONS






Encoded Relationalities



Navigational maps have existed long before GPS. The relationality between body and environment, the sky that encompasses Earth as both imaginary and common territory, was approached, lived and mapped in other ways, conveying a closer relationship with the phenomenology of the world around us. Phenomenology is a study of objects; the sky is also an object. Just a very large, transparent and immersive one. Timothy Morton calls objects that withhold themselves, yet are present on all scales at once, the Hyperobject. (read -> Hyperobject, Timothy Morton, 2015)
By looking at a concrete navigational map from the age of discovery (Cantino Planisphere, 1502, Biblioteca di Modena, Paint on Vellum) a multiplicity of scales and perspectives is encoded in it. By dissecting every layer of painted, drawn objects on the textile vellum base and looking at what viewpoints they convey or encode, the overlapping, irreconcilable encoded relationalities show an intricate approach of inhabiting the world. Layers have in them different meanings, just like when we look at the environment around us, we look at it through a certain lens. Flags showing the naval touchpoints of the Portuguese, who are the owners and creators of the map, painted the flags from the perspective of the sea, yet also gave us an idea of the cartographer’s position while mapping. The important windroses and meridian lines are the base grid for mapping the field, inherently connected to the happenings above the mapped territory and telling tales on the invisible space we are looking through: the sky of that time.


Territory, Imaginary and Ecology are mapped on different scales and convey different importances: very few cities appear and are illustrated in elevation, while landscapes follow the viewpoint of the illustrator. Colonised territory is differentiated from ecological aspects of the environment, marking value, resolution and relevance to the navigator using the map. In this way, portolan charts are a mediating device, between the planetary environment and the living body inhabiting it.

Google Zoom

Google Earth does not work through a ‘real’ camera - where Z1 would be located at around Geostationary Orbit altitude GEO (35.500km), but a digital encoding of Earth’s resolution within a single tile of 256 x 256 px.




The Laplacian Pyramid based on scale-space theory, is an encoding for defining resolution of an image. Together with the Gaussian Blur, a mathematical equation defining the correct resolution and value within the picture frame, the generate the correct zoom scale when prompted.



Opposing the pixel-based scaling of the Laplacian Pyramid, the zooming action on the screen conjures the scalarity of an optical zoom, where Z1 would be located outside the Exosphere, to encompass full planet Earth.

Opposing the pixel-based scaling of the Laplacian Pyramid, the zooming action on the screen conjures the scalarity of an optical zoom, where Z1 would be located outside the Exosphere, to encompass full planet Earth.



Opposing the pixel-based scaling of the Laplacia
Google Earth operates with a mix between rendered models, satellite imagery, and aerial photography, creating composite images. These thresholds  between  imagined and real heights can be mapped vertically, revealing the relationality between image , satellite and territory.


The two encoded relationalities are held within one image action, the Google zoom. The encoded relationality within the image reveals the atmosphere.



n Pyramid, the zooming action on the screen conjures the scalarity of an optical zoom, where Z1 would be located outside the Exosphere, to encompass full planet Earth.


Perspective as a Symbolic Form




Before the data-dense, pixel-based binary representations of the atmosphere, the sky has been the cosmological background to society and held meaning throughout cultures and mythologies as a place of bliss, heaven, afterlife. In Ghent, where my research is located, the dominant imaginary tied to the sky, was part of a place of adoration, embedded within the power-dynamics of the Catholic Church. As the dominant architectural typology, churches offed a spatial typology to connect to the sky, mimicking it within the high ceilings of the spatial features of cathedrals. But how was the sky actually encountered? (read -> Perspective as a Symbolic Form, Erwin Panofsky, 1927)

Flemish foldable altarpieces are objects of enconunters still available today, offering insight into the Flemish imaginary of  Early Netherlandish art between 1450-1550.
Today, only three locations in Belgium hold the original polyptych in their place of origin, as the vast treasure of Flemish master-painting has gone to museums all over the world. In Ghent, Jan van Eyck’s altarpiece has returned to its original cathedral, where, after many times being lost, stolen and cut, it stands today open for visitors.
The specific relationality encoded within becomes apparent when standing in front of it: the viewer is not removed from the image, but invited into the image plane, offering a non-hierarchical approach to the ecology of the sky. How is this achieved?





Due to the multiple perspectives held within the panels and within the key panel of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the relationality happens at once in central, parallel and reverse perspective. The irreconcilability of these perspectives is, what creates the special relational experience. As Panofsky argues, the perspective, how unusual it may seem for us, reveals the understanding of the sky object depicted and speaks about an imaginary now overwritten with different power dynamics.
How do we approach the sky today?

SKY PRACTICES is  a collection of experiments and situated practices derived from the findings of SKY INVERSIONS. This collection is an invitation to participate, to improve the connection between the urban typology of the sky, as a collective space and the colonised atmosphere of today.

SKY
PRACTICES






Domestic Sky




Navigational maps have existed long before GPS has. The relationality between body and environment, the sky that encompasses Earth as both imaginary and common territory, was approached, lived and mapped in other ways, conveying a closer relationship with the phenomenology of the world around us. Phenomenology is a study of objects, and the sky is arguably also an object. Just a very large, transparent and immersive one. Timothy Morton calls objects that withhold themselves, yet are present on all scales at once, the Hyperobject. (read -> Hyperobject, Timothy Morton, 2015)

By looking at a concrete navigational map from the age of discovery (Cantino Planisphere, 1502, Biblioteca di Modena, Paint on Vellum) a multiplicity of scales and perspectives is encoded in it. By dissecting every layer of painted, drawn objects on the textile vellum base and looking at what viewpoints they convey or encode, the overlapping, irreconcilable encoded relationalities show an intricate approach of inhabiting the world. Layers have in them different meanings, just like when we look at the environment around us, we look at it through a certain lens. Flags showing the naval touchpoints of the Portuguese, who are the owners and creators of the map, painted the flags from the perspective of the sea, yet also gave us an idea of the cartographer’s position while mapping. The important windroses and meridian lines are the base grid for mapping the field, inherently connected to the happenings above the mapped territory and telling tales on the invisible space we are looking through: the sky of that time.




Territory, Imaginary and Ecology are mapped on different scales and convey different importances: very few cities appear and are illustrated in elevation, while landscapes follow the viewpoint of the illustrator. Colonized territory is differentiated from ecological aspects of the environment, marking value, resolution and relevance to the navigator using the map. In this way, portolan charts, are a mediating device between planetary environment and the living body inhabiting it.




Sky Stitch




Navigational maps have existed long before GPS has. The relationality between body and environment, the sky that encompasses Earth as both imaginary and common territory, was approached, lived and mapped in other ways, conveying a closer relationship with the phenomenology of the world around us. Phenomenology is a study of objects, and the sky is arguably also an object. Just a very large, transparent and immersive one. Timothy Morton calls objects that withhold themselves, yet are present on all scales at once, the Hyperobject. (read -> Hyperobject, Timothy Morton, 2015)
By looking at a concrete navigational map from the age of discovery (Cantino Planisphere, 1502, Biblioteca di Modena, Paint on Vellum) a multiplicity of scales and perspectives is encoded in it. By dissecting every layer of painted, drawn objects on the textile vellum base and looking at what viewpoints they convey or encode, the overlapping, irreconcilable encoded relationalities show an intricate approach of inhabiting the world. Layers have in them different meanings, just like when we look at the environment around us, we look at it through a certain lens. Flags showing the naval touchpoints of the Portuguese, who are the owners and creators of the map, painted the flags from the perspective of the sea, yet also gave us an idea of the cartographer’s position while mapping. The important windroses and meridian lines are the base grid for mapping the field, inherently connected to the happenings above the mapped territory and telling tales on the invisible space we are looking through: the sky of that time.




Territory, Imaginary and Ecology are mapped on different scales and convey different importances: very few cities appear and are illustrated in elevation, while landscapes follow the viewpoint of the illustrator. Colonized territory is differentiated from ecological aspects of the environment, marking value, resolution and relevance to the navigator using the map. In this way, portolan charts, are a mediating device between planetary environment and the living body inhabiting it.