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Visual Technologies, Cosmographies, and Our Sense of Place in the Universe
Author(s) -
Rockwell Thomas
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9744.00440
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , modernity , relevance (law) , epistemology , focus (optics) , term (time) , universe , field (mathematics) , aesthetics , philosophy , physics , mathematics , astronomy , law , optics , political science , pure mathematics
The first part of this paper surveys the visual technologies that have transformed the modern visual environment and argues for the relevance of their study to an understanding of modernity in general and to the field of religion and science in particular. The term cosmography is adopted for the visual and spatial manifestation of a worldview, and the importance of analyzing and advancing modern cosmography is asserted. In the second part, the focus shifts to one particular challenge presented by modern cosmography: how to represent and find visual meaning in the new range of size scales that have been offered up by the modern scientific worldview. Six strategies for representing and finding meaning in this new expanded picture of the universe are explored.