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What is The Sun?
words by HaoGe Gan, 2024
What is the sun? Sang in the Kalasha folklore, the Sun’s daughter travelled to the Moon’s son’s house casting shadow on Hindu Kush Mountain Range. Suri Jagek is aKalasha traditional practice observing the sun, moon, stars and shadows with the local topography. The sun is their neighbor residing on the other side of the mountain, signaling them with distant light.
Way ahead of Plato, thinkers around the world believed in stored truth in the cosmos.As a shadow writer or skiagrapher, the sundial projects the modes and moods of the sun. Output as a kind of writing and drawing, scriptio by shadow while powered and directed by the sun like a celestial cinema. A kind of whose aim is not the trivial mimesis of earthly things, but the quadrivial indication of cosmic changes. Man captures the power to animate, translate, and communicate with the Sun.
Walter Benjamin suggested that the invention of the planetarium in the 1920s meant the modern replacement of Natur with Technik and of an ecstatic relation to the universe with a purely optical one. Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov articulates his philosophy of the Common Task. As the founder of Russian cosmism, he believed that outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. Are we imprisoned under the gravity of the sun? Is the sun a curse, or a bless…
Walter Benjamin suggested that the invention of the planetarium in the 1920s meant the modern replacement of Natur with Technik and of an ecstatic relation to the universe with a purely optical one. Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov articulates his philosophy of the Common Task. As the founder of Russian cosmism, he believed that outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. Are we imprisoned under the gravity of the sun? Is the sun a curse, or a bless…
Walter Benjamin
The Sun is Violence
The Aztec see the sun as a form of divine violence. Death was instrumental in the perpetuation of creation. To keep the sun from falling, feeding it with blood. On its surface of 20 million Kelvin, colossal explosions called solar flare happens where the Sun spews out an immense amount of electromagnetic radiation indifferently towardsplanets, substances, and beings.
Soviet biophysicist, Alexander Chizhevsky used statistical analysis of historical data, explained the relationship between the activity of solar cycles and human history. His research into the impact of solar emissions on human sociology, psychology, politics and economics in the form of wars, revolutions, and epidemics. According to George Bataille this excessive energy from the solar activities is called “the accursed share.” There is always a limit of growth, and an excess that must be spent this or that way, like wars and revolutions.
The divine violence of the sun infiltrating every corner of the earth, sea, and atmosphere. We are made of star-stuff. Under the tree rings hide the evidence the sun used to arrive. Sunspot cycle is recorded through the ever-growing rings burying part of the cosmos within, we are a way for the universe to know itself.
The Aztec see the sun as a form of divine violence. Death was instrumental in the perpetuation of creation. To keep the sun from falling, feeding it with blood. On its surface of 20 million Kelvin, colossal explosions called solar flare happens where the Sun spews out an immense amount of electromagnetic radiation indifferently towardsplanets, substances, and beings.
Soviet biophysicist, Alexander Chizhevsky used statistical analysis of historical data, explained the relationship between the activity of solar cycles and human history. His research into the impact of solar emissions on human sociology, psychology, politics and economics in the form of wars, revolutions, and epidemics. According to George Bataille this excessive energy from the solar activities is called “the accursed share.” There is always a limit of growth, and an excess that must be spent this or that way, like wars and revolutions.
The divine violence of the sun infiltrating every corner of the earth, sea, and atmosphere. We are made of star-stuff. Under the tree rings hide the evidence the sun used to arrive. Sunspot cycle is recorded through the ever-growing rings burying part of the cosmos within, we are a way for the universe to know itself.
The Sun is a Weapon:
Human soon realized how to gain the power of the sun through the concentrating its energy. Archimedes used mirror to reflect sunlight burning the Roman fleet in about 212 B.C. The invention of mirrors and glasses epitomizes humanity's quest to defy the sun, turning its power into a weapon. Such human hubris fixes the Sun as our delusional proxy, a solar slave, an anthropocentric appendage and a projected idol of man-as-God. Medieval inventors endeavored to craft a monumental parabolic mirror, rivaling a mountain in scale, harnessing light to mimic the sun.
The first atomic bomb named as Trinity was successfully tested in the desert of New Mexico in 1945. Few years later scientists certified that the Sun was in fact the sameas the hydrogen bomb. Or, biblically, the Sun was made in the image of the bomb.The Sun becomes a subject of ideology and a weapon of rational political science—replacing, but then later merging back with, religion as the repressed returns. J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita to describe his feeling of the bomb test. “I become death, destroyer of worlds,” he said. With the sun in our grasp, fusion.
Human soon realized how to gain the power of the sun through the concentrating its energy. Archimedes used mirror to reflect sunlight burning the Roman fleet in about 212 B.C. The invention of mirrors and glasses epitomizes humanity's quest to defy the sun, turning its power into a weapon. Such human hubris fixes the Sun as our delusional proxy, a solar slave, an anthropocentric appendage and a projected idol of man-as-God. Medieval inventors endeavored to craft a monumental parabolic mirror, rivaling a mountain in scale, harnessing light to mimic the sun.
The first atomic bomb named as Trinity was successfully tested in the desert of New Mexico in 1945. Few years later scientists certified that the Sun was in fact the sameas the hydrogen bomb. Or, biblically, the Sun was made in the image of the bomb.The Sun becomes a subject of ideology and a weapon of rational political science—replacing, but then later merging back with, religion as the repressed returns. J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita to describe his feeling of the bomb test. “I become death, destroyer of worlds,” he said. With the sun in our grasp, fusion.
The Sun is a Colony:
'Ancient Lights' is a legal principle from Roman times, viewing sunlight as a shared, democratic energy, metaphorically representing the Sun's political significance.Michel Serres took the sun as the symbolic form of capital par excellence: “The ultimate capital is the sun,” he wrote. "Colonialism of the sun" traces back to ancient times, with the sun symbolizing divine authority. The Romans, leveraging this symbolism, expanded their empire under the sun's banner. Alexander von Humboldt's isothermal world maps spurred visions of solar-powered industrialization in sunny yet coal-poor regions. The Sun is a perceived reservoir of energy, ripe for exploitation by colonial powers.
In 1890, engineer Charles Tellier released "The Peaceful Conquest of Africa by the Sun," a work that repurposed France's "peaceful conquest" slogan, linked to colonialism in Algeria. Philadelphia inventor Frank Shuman significantly advanced Tellier's idea of a solar motor by building a 65-horsepower solar irrigation pump on the Nile River near Cairo in 1913.
Over the year solar technologies have been largely applied to human expeditions, in the great desert of American West, on the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, on the snowmountain in Switzerland, around the orbit of the Earth, and finally into the deep space.The modernist sunflowers thirst for their food. The child of the sun.
'Ancient Lights' is a legal principle from Roman times, viewing sunlight as a shared, democratic energy, metaphorically representing the Sun's political significance.Michel Serres took the sun as the symbolic form of capital par excellence: “The ultimate capital is the sun,” he wrote. "Colonialism of the sun" traces back to ancient times, with the sun symbolizing divine authority. The Romans, leveraging this symbolism, expanded their empire under the sun's banner. Alexander von Humboldt's isothermal world maps spurred visions of solar-powered industrialization in sunny yet coal-poor regions. The Sun is a perceived reservoir of energy, ripe for exploitation by colonial powers.
In 1890, engineer Charles Tellier released "The Peaceful Conquest of Africa by the Sun," a work that repurposed France's "peaceful conquest" slogan, linked to colonialism in Algeria. Philadelphia inventor Frank Shuman significantly advanced Tellier's idea of a solar motor by building a 65-horsepower solar irrigation pump on the Nile River near Cairo in 1913.
Over the year solar technologies have been largely applied to human expeditions, in the great desert of American West, on the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, on the snowmountain in Switzerland, around the orbit of the Earth, and finally into the deep space.The modernist sunflowers thirst for their food. The child of the sun.
The Sun is a Liar
“Can the sun lie?” asked the Albany Law Journal in 1886. During the Independence War led by George Washington, the army witnessed a solar eclipse, a symbol of death and rebirth for the Dine people. Under the same sky for both Dine people and the Continental Army, at this very moment, the sun was a traitor lying on their fate.
In the Canadian Arctic, the sun now sets many kilometers further west, and the stars have shifted from their expected positions. This change is attributed to the altered composition of snowflakes, a result of climate change, compounded by chemicals from atmospheric pollution. The sun has finally become a liar. Indigenous knowledge, long relied upon by the Inuit for navigating their environment, seems to transport them to an alien world, with unfamiliar ice, snow, stars, and a seemingly different sun in the sky.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul would return to a preserved corpse. Over three thousand years ago, their pharaoh invented a new religion of one God: The Sun. This pharaoh worshipped solar energy, and called himself Son of the Sun. When the pharaoh resurrects, will he recognize the Sun he believed in?
“Can the sun lie?” asked the Albany Law Journal in 1886. During the Independence War led by George Washington, the army witnessed a solar eclipse, a symbol of death and rebirth for the Dine people. Under the same sky for both Dine people and the Continental Army, at this very moment, the sun was a traitor lying on their fate.
In the Canadian Arctic, the sun now sets many kilometers further west, and the stars have shifted from their expected positions. This change is attributed to the altered composition of snowflakes, a result of climate change, compounded by chemicals from atmospheric pollution. The sun has finally become a liar. Indigenous knowledge, long relied upon by the Inuit for navigating their environment, seems to transport them to an alien world, with unfamiliar ice, snow, stars, and a seemingly different sun in the sky.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul would return to a preserved corpse. Over three thousand years ago, their pharaoh invented a new religion of one God: The Sun. This pharaoh worshipped solar energy, and called himself Son of the Sun. When the pharaoh resurrects, will he recognize the Sun he believed in?
The Sun is an Enemy:
The boundless solar energy that bathes our planet daily is often cited as a primary contributor to global warming. Throughout history, humanity has devised means to shield itself from the sun's ultraviolet rays, developing umbrellas and advocating for sunscreen as defenses against the star. The sun, paradoxically vital yet mistrusted, has been cast as an enemy.
Buckminster Fuller envisioned encapsulating Earth within a dome, precursed to solar geoengineering. This avant-garde scientific endeavor seeks to mitigate the sun's intensity to cool our planet, marking our boldest challenge yet to the sun's supremacy. In response to our unpredictable celestial neighbor, the Biden-Harris Administration has pledged a staggering $24 billion to space initiatives and the advancement of solar geoengineering projects. This idea ignites global debates, encountering resistance from groups such as the Sami People of Northern Sweden and the Mexican Government. Solar geoengineering, a notion that could belong in a science fiction novel, casts the sun as the antagonist in our contemporary environmental narrative, proposing that humans might wield control over the sun's influence on Earth.
The futurist opera Victory over the Sun, premiered in 1913. This experimental avant-garde piece depicted the future of conquer the sun. Overtaken by modernity and abstraction, with Malevich’s Black Square replacing the solar circle. “The world will perish but there’s no end to us!” Capturing the sun in a concrete vault, humanity defies nature's cycle of death, launching into a new infinity. The old sun may riseagain, but people don’t need its rays anymore.
The boundless solar energy that bathes our planet daily is often cited as a primary contributor to global warming. Throughout history, humanity has devised means to shield itself from the sun's ultraviolet rays, developing umbrellas and advocating for sunscreen as defenses against the star. The sun, paradoxically vital yet mistrusted, has been cast as an enemy.
Buckminster Fuller envisioned encapsulating Earth within a dome, precursed to solar geoengineering. This avant-garde scientific endeavor seeks to mitigate the sun's intensity to cool our planet, marking our boldest challenge yet to the sun's supremacy. In response to our unpredictable celestial neighbor, the Biden-Harris Administration has pledged a staggering $24 billion to space initiatives and the advancement of solar geoengineering projects. This idea ignites global debates, encountering resistance from groups such as the Sami People of Northern Sweden and the Mexican Government. Solar geoengineering, a notion that could belong in a science fiction novel, casts the sun as the antagonist in our contemporary environmental narrative, proposing that humans might wield control over the sun's influence on Earth.
The futurist opera Victory over the Sun, premiered in 1913. This experimental avant-garde piece depicted the future of conquer the sun. Overtaken by modernity and abstraction, with Malevich’s Black Square replacing the solar circle. “The world will perish but there’s no end to us!” Capturing the sun in a concrete vault, humanity defies nature's cycle of death, launching into a new infinity. The old sun may riseagain, but people don’t need its rays anymore.
picture by SpaceNews
CODA
In the cosmologies of Aztec, it was believed that the universe had gone through four iterations before the current one, and each of these prior worlds had been destroyed by Gods due to the behavior of its inhabitants.
Launched aboard the twin Voyager spacecraft in 1977, the Voyager Golden Records encapsulate humanity's lofty aspirations to traverse the cosmos. These emissaries, now voyaging over 10 billion miles from Earth, have breached the confines of our solar system, sailing into the vast expanse beyond the Sun's sway. Finally humanintelligence break through the bound of the solar system, sailing towards the Sixth Sun and fading into the darkness.
In the cosmologies of Aztec, it was believed that the universe had gone through four iterations before the current one, and each of these prior worlds had been destroyed by Gods due to the behavior of its inhabitants.
Launched aboard the twin Voyager spacecraft in 1977, the Voyager Golden Records encapsulate humanity's lofty aspirations to traverse the cosmos. These emissaries, now voyaging over 10 billion miles from Earth, have breached the confines of our solar system, sailing into the vast expanse beyond the Sun's sway. Finally humanintelligence break through the bound of the solar system, sailing towards the Sixth Sun and fading into the darkness.
words by HaoGe Gan
