rotagavin: The past is another planet. They do things differently there.

I remember reading, or being told, that as we stare into space we are looking into the past, that the light reaching us is centuries old. I had something of this feeling when reviewing my grandfather’s footage. I also recalled images from Star Trek in which the Enterprise would encounter Earth’s past through a viewscreen. I am almost certain that this happened on more than one occasion.

Star Trek

I decided to project the images from my father’s past onto polystyrene spheres creating new planets or perhaps images reminiscent of the opening scenes of Flash Gordon in which Ming the Merciless targets earth for eventual destruction. Or perhaps I was remembering the camera obscura from A Matter of Life and Death, 1946. Both these images and the many more circular viewscreens of science fiction create a feeling of separation from their imagery.