What is the smallest you’ve ever felt?
Given that we perceive everything through the senses of our own bodies, it takes a lot to pull us out of ourselves, to decenter our particular perceptions from the middle of the universe. The views of earth from space and the scattering of galaxies in deep-field images may be the most significant illustrations of our smallness in the face of everything that exists.
Aside from the size of the universe itself, there is plenty within it that reinforces the hierarchy of scale: the sublime expanse of the oceans, gigantic ecological timescales, lumbering machinery requiring squealing brakes, incomprehensible storms swirling on gas giants, the heaving body of a large predator, the sheer number of insects on earth.
Even these direct pictures of the universe, however, are hard to fully grasp; the scale of everything slips out of comprehension. We can only hold them in pieces, and not in their enormous entirety.
Scaling down then to our comprehension of largeness and smallness, we understand that our reaction to scale is caused by our perception of it. Physical scale inspires feelings of both protection and megalophobia. Perceptual scale permits us to take a long view of things, while also challenging our egos. Things of great scale humble us. They also inspire awe.
What are the consequences of our awe?
HYPERVIEW is a call for works about scale, largeness, and vastness, both formal and conceptual.
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