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Comments on SkyCeiling Big Indoor Sky
This remarkable product from The Sky Factory is worthy of Hogwarts - and Stanislaw Lem. (Read
the complete story)
"Here's another SkyCeiling created especially for a Star Wars fan:
 (SkyCeiling for science fiction fans) " (Bill Christensen 10/11/2006 7:39:59 AM) |
| "Also, a reader pointed out in the associated technovelgy item for sky ceiling that Ray Bradbury had written about something similar (see the comments on Lem's sky ceiling for details)." (Bill Christensen 10/11/2006 7:59:46 PM) |
| "Well, I'm not sure how much of this will be of interest but here goes. As the designers of SkyCeilings™, we have had a lot of time to observe their effects and, yes the "object" SkyCeiling has appeared before in SF literature and for real (think of the old cathedral ceilings) but for us the most interesting and unique thing has become the physiological response to properly made SkyCeilings. This, from my limited knowledge of SF, has very interesting parallels and raises some fundamental metaphysical questions that have also been the subject of SF inquiry.
Consider, by way of prologue, that the Sky is our biggest and most universal experience of nature; that we (our nervous systems, consciousness, knowledge base, cultural habits etc.) have evolved under our sky. Sky equals space (note that the basis of impressionism is that cool colors such as blue are perceived to recede into space and warm colors such as red jump forward in space. If we had evolved under a red sky, our stoplights would be green and our go lights red!) Everyone on the planet who lies on their back and looks up into a beautiful sky has the same experience - inner stability, peacefulness, well being, calm, expansion of awareness often insight – check out Tolstoy’s death of Prince Andre on the battlefield in War and Peace (-sorry it’s not considered SF but it is an incredible description of death worthy of the absolute best of SF). Given the fact that we all have this profound experience under sky (though we may describe it differently) this is no accident and probably has significant metaphysical implications as well. The interesting thing is that a properly done SkyCeiling triggers all of this in the observer. It has been demonstrated to operate through frontal vision (focus of attention) and automatically through peripheral vision (our security system). Yet, such a SkyCeiling is entirely virtual – plastic, aluminum and synthetic light – albeit designed to trick the senses and mind (but not the intellect). It is 100% illusion. It is done like magic is done. The fact that a SkyCeiling can trigger the same psycho physiological response as the real thing is where things start to get interesting. Hasn't this been the subject of a tremendous amount of SF literature? I am thinking at the moment of Stephenson’s Metaverse or his ractives or the young lady's primer. But I know there is way more. Put a bit differently, “How can simulacra produce authentic experience?" So…What is really happening? I have my ideas but would really like to hear others opinions and conjectures. By the way, if you want to experience a SkyCeiling for your self, maybe you are in the path of the SkyMobile which is traveling around the US and has excellent examples inside. " (Bill Witherspoon 10/12/2006 5:10:37 AM) |
| "I loved the information about the SkyCeiling." (Kristyn Coffey 11/27/2006 5:29:06 AM) |
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