The short video assembles some memories of INAF-OATo and some dissemination materials used for the launch of Gaia. In particular, the song “Singing the stars” and the photon promo in English. Furthermore has been inserted the excerpt version of the video installation Pulsar_2017 created by the artist Michele Guido under M. Crosta’s scientific supervision as far as Astronomy is concerned.
The promo is part of the short motion comics “The Meaning of Light” produced for the launch of the Gaia satellite (ESA, 2013). Gaia is measuring star positions and will help to solve one of the most difficult yet deeply fundamental challenge in modern astronomy: to create an extraordinarily precise three dimensional map of about one billion stars throughout our Galaxy and beyond. This massive stellar census will unravel the structure, dynamics, and evolutional history of our Galaxy (see http:// www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/the-mission). “The Meaning of Light” is the story of a group of stellar photons that, after having left the star progenitor, propagate through the Universe and, once trapped in the Earth, come into contact with the team of scientists: here begin the adventures to take them “back” at home and to do this the scientists, together with the spectators, are driven to discover the wonders of which the light quanta are bearers. The description of the journey of photons becomes, therefore, an opportunity to tell about Gaia and the main topics of astrophysics together with those related to the complicate theory of Einstein, as well as the complexity and the infinite mystery of the Universe in which we live. The short pilot that inaugurated the project highlights the need of a proper spatial orientation and navigation through the geometry of the Universe that will be possible thank to the extremely sophisticated data delivered by Gaia (in particular it focus on the ESA core activities within the Data Processing and Analysis Consortium of Gaia).
The refrain of the theme song “Singing the Stars” (Oh be a fine girl / guy kiss me Little Thing, Yeah) adds to the famous star classification mnemonic (OBAFGKM) the new types of stars as the LTY ones discovered in recent years. The text evokes the role of light as a guide through our galactic spacetime and, of course, the improvement of our understanding of stellar evolution thanks to Gaia (music F.Vittori and P. Mercaldi, text M. Crosta, voice V. Quarta).
Michele Guido’s video project Pulsar_2017 establishes several levels of relationship between microcosm and macrocosm in a Renaissance key, relating the iconography of classical art and the vision of celestial bodies in cosmic space, the macro photos of some dissected plants/flowers and the movement of Gaia. The project was sponsored by the Lia Rumma Galler and Merz Foundation. It was also presented at the inaugural concert of the ESOF 2020 in Trieste.
