Dark Skies Philosophy It Starts in the “Chill” Gaze Barry Vacker Follow Nov 14 · 16 min read The Milky Way above the Rio Grande and Big Bend Ranch State Park in far west Texas. Photo by Morteza Safataj, Big Bend Conservation Alliance website; used with permission. Looking Out and Away What if the “Dark Skies” movement might be the most important long-term idea for our civilization and life on Planet Earth? What if a new philosophy can generate new dreams, desperately needed amid the waking nightmares haunting our lives and civilization: climate disruption, environmental destruction, antiscience worldviews, conspiracy theories, and racism and nationalism? What if Dark Skies is the natural light we need, if only we will look out and away from ourselves, away from our species? “Dark Skies” refers to the worldwide movement to protect the Milky Way from light pollution, eEorts which have many practical beneFts for humans and wildlife. To me, the Dark Skies Movement suggests much more, precisely because its eEect is to re-orient our civilization within nature and the universe and reestablish the human connection to the starry skies. Dark Skies is about looking out and away from humanity, casting our gaze into the Milky Way and beyond. Hidden in this change of gaze is a very diEerent philosophy for our species. Picture the skyglow of our cities and the radiant Milky Way in your mind’s eye. In the contrast between the two is an opening, a space, a void—a chance to create a new philosophy for human civilization going forward in the 21st century and the still new millennium. We have to start somewhere. Notably, this philosophy is grounded in science and aesthetics, combining our rationality with the emotions felt toward the starry skies and our true place in the universe. Of course, there are serious implications for politics, economics, and consumer society, but those are not the starting points. This philosophy represents a worldview anchored in our scientiFc understanding of the universe and the sublime feeling beneath the dark skies, which combine to ground a shared experience and universal narrative for the human species. Let’s call this the “Dark Skies” philosophy and it all begins with understanding the diEerences between the hot and chill gazes. This essay draws from “Hot and Cool in the Media(S)cene,” a 2018 Medium essay I co-authored with Julia Hildebrand. The essay won the John Culkin Award, an international award given annually by the Media Ecology Association and inspired our art exhibit at the University of Toronto. World’s Largest Dark Sky Reserve A profoundly hopeful border project is underway in the deserts of far west Texas and northern Mexico. The goal is to create the largest “International Dark Sky Reserve” on Planet Earth. The Dark Sky Reserve will span approximately 15,000 square miles in Texas and Mexico (see artwork below). As I have written in Medium: The world’s largest International Dark Sky Reserve is an important signpost for a species lost in the skyglow of its 24/7 electric civilization. This Dark Sky Reserve brings together nature and science, ecology and cosmology, and peaceful cooperation along a contentious border — all quietly pointing toward a new philosophy for the human species. This transborder project gives me hope for our species precisely because it directs and positions humanity’s gaze away from itself. Changing the direction of the gaze changes our philosophy of existence. The Dark Sky Reserve allows humanity to see itself in terms of its true origins and place in the universe, thus providing an existential stance and universal narrative that are missing from the nationalistic and narcissistic worldviews that dominate our culture. Map of light pollution in North America. (Note: the blue circle was added here to locate the International Dark Sky Reserve in Texas and Mexico.) This image is a section of “Electric Vanishing Points,” a mixed-media installation currently in development; acrylic and printed image, 6 feet x 8 feet. Barry Vacker, 2020. Origins and Benefits of the Dark Skies Movement The Dark Skies movement has its origins in Arizona. To protect the dark skies for the Lowell Observatory in the 1950s, FlagstaE became the Frst city to pass ordinances to limit light pollution. By the 1970s, similar policies were enacted in Tucson to protect the night skies for the nearby Kitt-Peak Observatory. Tucson is home to the International Dark Sky Association, which was founded in 1988 to protect dark skies and educate the public about the many practical beneFts from reducing light pollution. These beneFts include: — lower energy costs for outdoor lighting — health beneFts for humans, including reduced risk of cancer — reduced impact on wildlife and our planet’s ecosystems — increased tourism for towns and national parks that promote “astro-tourism,” where visitors come to see the Milky Way and often bring their own telescopes. — protecting the dark skies for observatories and astronomical studies. — making it possible for people to see the deep beauty of dark skies and feel connected to the universe. To realize and expand these beneFts, the IDA started the “International Dark Sky Places” program in 2001. The program honors proper stewardship of the night skies and includes Dark Sky Communities, Dark Sky Parks, Dark Sky Sanctuaries, and Dark Sky Reserves. The Hot Gaze: Skyglow and Spectacle Electric light is a media technology that has utterly transformed the modern world and human consciousness. Electric light has produced a 24/7 planetary civilization that displaces the Milky Way with an electric galaxy of lightbulbs, streetlights, neon signs, and LED lights. Electric light also powers our glowing televisions, computers, laptops, tablets, and smart phones. These lights collectively create a skyglow civilization, networks of cities existing inside domes and spectra of light. “Hot take” and “chill out” — these are two diEerent responses to events, expressing two radically diEerent existential stances toward the universe. In these two stances are two diEerent philosophies oriented in two diEerent gazes — hot and cool. The hot gaze is Flled with artiFcial lights and glowing screens, while the cool gaze looks toward the natural light of dark skies and twinkling stars. Here, I will be referencing “Hot and Cool in the Media(S)cene,” the international award-winning essay I coauthored with Julia Hildebrand (mentioned above with the table outlining Dark Skies Philosophy). The 24/7 Spectacle In our cities and towns, the hot gaze is dominant and directed inward upon our species, the endless antics of our 24/7 spectacle —Flled with high densities of image and information, powered by electric energy. Smart phones get hot in our hand, laptops heat on our thighs. Screens oEer instant proximity to all events, getting hotter every moment. Events coming at us, colliding and rubbing against one another, generating Fssion and friction. Acceleration, quick reactions, short attention spans, instant feedback loops. Temperatures are higher, tempers are hotter. “Hot Media,” printed and stretched canvas. 4 feet x 5 feet. Concept: Julia Hildebrand and Barry Vacker. Graphic design: Vacker, Hildebrand, and Sara Falco, 2019. For the Media(S)cene exhibit, Media Ecology Convention, the University of Toronto, 2019. The 24/7 spectacle is a realm of mediated images and events, commodiFed into the exchange values of clicks, emojis, ratings, downloads, subscribers, and trillions of dollars for global media Frms. In the skyglow and spectacle, we humans appear to be the center of the universe—the center of all value, purpose, and meaning. Everything is near and now. Swipe right, scroll down, click here. Instant gratiFcation. Circulation, replication, memes going viral. Siri and Alexa, Androids and iPhones. Apps galore. In the spectacle, we dominate this planet. Tribalism, nationalism, and reality-TV stars reign supreme. Sexism, racism, fascism, and anti-science are on the march. Protests rise to resist, #metoo, BLM, the Climate Strike, the Science March. Congict, consumption, and entertainment—all day, every day. Rants and rage, likes and love. Celebrities, footballers, billionaires, inguencers, YouTube videos, and TikTok dancers. Fakes, facades, fast food, fast fashion, and faster connections. Streaming, bingeing, buying. Netgix, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Times Square, Las Vegas. Bright lights, big data, 5G and 152" plasma screens in our McMansions. Meanwhile, the Covid consumer society gows through Amazon and the fossil fuel C02 still spews into the atmosphere. We’re living large. Hot gaze, hot takes, hot planet. System overload. Relax and take a selFe. The Chill Gaze We know what happens to temperatures when the sun sets and the stars come out. The air gets cooler as the skies darken. Outside the city skyglow, we can direct our gaze toward the Milky Way. Like the cooling air, our gaze begins to chill. The chill gaze is grounded in the naked eye and telescopes, the cool media technologies that counter the heat of electric light and screens. Cool media are any technology cast the human gaze from itself, such as telescopes, space probes, and satellites that look away from Earth. Telescopes are the most radical media technology, precisely because they removed humanity from the center of the universe and ushered in science as a means for knowing our true origins on Earth and true place in the cosmos. The chill gaze is an outward view, looking away from the instant of the spectacle, toward the distant and inFnite of dark skies—the stars, planets, nebulae, and galaxies. Above is the Milky Way, below is Spaceship Earth, spinning on its axis as it orbits a nearby star. In the chill gaze, we are travelers in space and time. The universe is ancient, time seems eternal. The chill gaze confronts lower densities, lower friction, and more remote events. Temperatures are lower, tempers are cooler. In the darkness, there is less artiFcial light and more natural light. Our eyes open wider, our minds wander and wonder. We see we’re not the the center of the universe, not the center of everything. We’re the center of nothing. That’s the big chill for human narcissism. “Cool Media,” printed and stretched canvas. 4 feet x 5 feet. Concept: Julia Hildebrand and Barry Vacker. Graphic design: Vacker, Hildebrand, and Sara Falco, 2019. For the Media(S)cene exhibit, Media Ecology Convention, the University of Toronto, 2019. In the chill gaze, events slow, attention spans grow, regection trumps reaction, borders and wars become artiFcial and absurd. Hot conditions are not visible. Large-scale patterns, movements, and locations become more apparent. Our eyes see planets and constellations—Saturn, Jupiter, Vega, Betelguise, Orion, and the Big Dipper. We see meteor showers and shooting stars, ending their billion-year journeys as burnt embers in the Earth’s atmosphere. Our most powerful telescopes map supernovas, black holes, and the cosmic web of two trillion galaxies—in a vast and ancient universe stretching across 100 billion light years. Voids, holes, and emptinesses in outer space and our philosophies become visible. Nihilism meets enlightenment. The universal over the tribal. Terrestrial heat replaced by the cosmic chill. There are no widely-accepted political narratives in the cool. Hot politics freeze in the cosmic background temperature, tending toward absolute zero. Chill out. The Cosmic Sublime Wow! Awesome! Amazing! Incredible! Breath-taking! If you’ve seen the Milky Way in truly dark skies, then you know the feelings, which are almost indescribable. Modern philosophers call it the sublime. If the spectacle is the heart of the hot gaze, then the sublime is at the heart of the chill gaze. The sublime simultaneouly grounds our experience of the universe and our consciousness, the outer universe and inner being—the starry skies and the aesthetic laws within. In the chill gaze, the inFnitesimal and inFnite merge in our eyes to trigger the sublime — the deep feelings of awe, wonder, and reverence for the universe and our existence in it. The sublime is the singular transcendent experience that connects us (the inFnitesimal) to the universe (the inFnite) and it is shared by all of humanity—the only species on our planet to knowingly have the aesthetic experience of the majestic universe we have discovered. That’s why ancient peoples had elaborate rituals and celebrations beneath the starry skies. We need new versions of these rituals, celebrations which unite the ancient and the futurist sensibilities. Astrotourism and Star Parties (see below) are mere Frst steps. We experience the sublime when there’s a tension between our perceptions and our reason, when our senses are overwhelmed, yet our minds can still order the percepts into knowable and pleasurable concepts (concepts which are terrifying for some people). The sublime is what’s felt when viewing the Grand Canyon, walking among the California redwoods, or looking up at the Milky Way. Our naked eyes and telescopes are cool media, chilling us as we peer into the vast universe—immense scales of space and time; dynamic systems of stars, galaxies, supernovas, and black holes; sprawling voids and seeming emptinesses; and immeasurable realms of cosmic destruction and renewal. These distant objects and patterns stimulate our imaginations in awe-inspiring and wondrous experiences. Let’s call this experience the cosmic sublime. Experiencing the cosmic sublime at “Star Parties,” hosted by the McDonald Observatory; photos of courtesy of McDonald Observatory. “Star Parties”—Arriving as Individualists, Leaving as Members of a Species Directly experiencing the stars and nearby galaxies from both a scientiFc and aesthetic perspective is thrilling and inspiring. It’s like what I have directly experienced at the McDonald Observatory (no connection to the hamburger chain) in the desert mountains of Texas. The dark skies are Flled with the radiant Milky Way an d have enabled me to experience the cosmic sublime and transcendent moments in which I am connected to a narrative much larger than the human-centered narratives that dominate the 24/7 spectacle. Owned and managed by The University of Texas at Austin, the McDonald Observatory is the site for “Star Parties” every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday night. Peering into very powerful telescopes, visitors view planets in our solar system, various phenomena in the Milky Way, and even other galaxies far beyond. During my many visits to the Star Parties, I have gazed upon the Andromeda and Whirlpool Galaxies, neighbors of the Milky Way. Andromeda is over 2 million light years from the Milky Way, while the Whirlpool Galaxy is at least 15 million light years away. Imagine seeing the tilted spiral of Andromeda, with photons from 1 trillion stars traversing the cosmic voids at the speed of light for 2 million years, light leaving that galaxy long before any human walked on Earth! On one particular visit, it occurred to me while I was gazing through one telescope that, after eons of space traveling, the starlight I was witnessing was passing through the telescope’s lenses and into my own eyes, where photons from the Andromeda Galaxy were actually converting into bioelectrical patterns in my brain. In that existential moment, my consciousness was connected with the cosmos, and a tiny fragment of the universe was directly aware of itself on a grand scale — connecting the inFnite and inFnitesimal. Though tiny in relation to the cosmos, I felt the exaltation and anrmation of human existence, the power of human reason to grasp what I was seeing and sensing. It is likely I have never felt more inspired and at peace in the same moment. Mind-blown! Visitors arrive at the Star Parties at sunset as individualists. As the Milky Way rises above, in the individuality dissipates beneath the dark skies. Gazing at the Milky Way in wonder, peering through the telescopes and having minds blown, visitors are quietly transformed into members of a species—the human species. The cosmic sublime is not a mystical or religious experience; it’s a profoundly aesthetic, existential, and transcendent experience. That’s the power of the cosmic sublime, that’s the shared experience everyone feels, that’s the eEect of cool media and the chill gaze. In the experience of awe, we can feel deeply connected to the universe or crushed by its inFniteness. In the sublime, we are rational and free, we feel exaltation and wonder before the stars, and we know we are tiny, yet brainy, creative, and curious. Science shows that our origins are in stars, that our destiny is to live and die, that species thrive and go extinct, and that our dominant narratives are wrong for our civilization and the planet. We know we face the paradox of our greatest intellectual achievements — we have discovered a vast and majestic universe in which we are insigniFcant and perhaps meaningless as a species. Or are we? Planetary Minimalism If there is one guiding aesthetic in the 24/7 spectacle, it is maximalism on all fronts. Increased consumption, larger screens, brighter images, bigger data, taller skyscrapers, faster speeds, greater populations, more stuE everywhere, more everything all the time. It’s living large … with plenty of bling! The Dark Skies philosophy is not a call to return to a mythical past, to some quaint notions of living in villages or small towns of yesteryear. Rather, it is a call to embrace diEerent aesthetic vision to guide our civilization, a diEerent system of values, a diEerent visual narrative to guide our species, daily and long-term. The Dark Skies philosophy implicitly regects an embrace of minimalism, the aesthetics of less clutter and ornament, with overall spareness and empty space. Minimalism is the aesthetic of less is more. At night, the world is minimalist and monochromatic, illuminated by the moon and Milky Way. Inside our bright skyglow, we all stand out as individuals, as part of the endless visual clutter that surrounds us. In contrast, when we stand beneath the dark skies, we fade into the monochromatic landscape as the single species we are. The daytime individualist and nighttime species need not be in congict, especially when we realize that our personal interests are inherently connected to that of the species, daily and long-term. Away from the cities, the dark sky experience is generally quiet and free of noise. The minimalist surroundings make it perfect for regection and contemplation. In the chill gaze, the overall aesthetic sensibility tends toward minimalism. Less visual clutter, less noise, and less human bling. Less is more! Thus, it is no surprise that the Dark Skies policies lead to less energy consumption, less harm for wildlife, and even less risk of cancer for humans. It’s not a giant leap to see how Dark Skies is consistent with less mindless consumption, less use of material resources, less suburban sprawl, less impact on the planet, and so on. Planetary and Galactic Narrative The sciences and the sublime experiences all point toward a grand narrative for the human species, one that is planetary and even galactic. We must grow up and embrace that fact that we humans are a single species, sharing 99.5% of the same DNA. We also share a planet with millions of other life forms, on a tiny speck in an immense, majestic, awe-inspiring cosmos. Planetary and galactic narratives counter all the hot and self-righteous narratives that fuel hate, racism, prejudice, anti-science, and endless warfare and bloodshed, usually in the name of Gods and nations. That we are a single species mandates equal rights for everyone on the planet, regardless of race, class, gender, ability, identity, and sexual orientation. And that means everyone. No exceptions! A planetary narrative accepts that we are part of the complex systems of life on our planet, sustained by energy and matter, powered by our nearby star, the sun. This narrative also accepts that our skyglow civilization has eEected the “Anthropocene,” the new geological epoch in which humanity is the dominant global force on the planet. Our civilization is causing climate disruption on a massive scale, while possibly eEecting the Sixth Extinction Event. That’s why we must reduce the impact of our civilization. Less impact means a longer civilization. “Spaceship Earth” The Dark Skies philosophy is necessarily galactic. After all, not only do we all share the same DNA, but our bodies and brains are made of the most common elements of the universe—hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. Since are made of starstuE (as Carl Sagan said), we are one way the universe is aware of itself, at least in our small part of the Milky Way. To paraphrase Jill Tarter, the pioneering SETI astronomer, we humans are what happens when hydrogen atoms evolve for 13.7 billion years to wonder where they came from and where they are going. Self-aware starstuE, highly evolved hydrogen, organized into the human species on a living planet as it hurtles through the inFnity of space and time—we are passengers on “Spaceship Earth,” as futurist Buckminster Fuller poetically described us. For Fuller, Spaceship Earth meant more than poetics. Fuller showed how we could implement systems to minimize resource consumption while providing modern (electriFed, industrial, sanitary) livable systems for everyone on Earth. The idea is to think like astronauts on a spaceship, with limited space and resources, cruising through dark skies toward our new destiny. What do we really need to survive, be happy, and Fnd meaning and purpose? Consumption will not go away, precisely because our aesthetic drives generate the designed worlds of art and architecture, fashion and furniture, cars and planes, and cities and skylines. But, we can minimize the scale and make it sustainable, with far less impact on Earth. At least, that’s the hope. That’s the personal, ecological, philosophical challenge we face, to integrate our skyglow cities and aesthetic needs within the limits of Spaceship Earth, while reconciling our tininess with our braininess in the awe-inspiring universe. This challenge will not be met over night, but it begins with dark skies, cool media, and the chill gaze. Like the cosmos in its journey from the explosion of pure energy and heat to the expanding universe tending toward the cool, toward the ultimate chill of absolute zero, we humans were born in the heat of stars and will Fnd our meaning and destiny on our planet and in the chill of the dark skies. We need new dreams. L: “LA skyline and the Griffith Observatory Milky Way!” Los Angeles, Eliot McGucken Fine Art Photography, 2019. R: Los Angeles and the Disney Center, in Theirry Cohen, Villes éteintes” (Darkened Cities), Official Selection Mois de la Photo à Paris, Esther Woerdehoff Gallery, 2012. Dark Sky Dreams As shown in the artworks above, Dark Sky dreams for our cities are emerging from our collective subconsciousness. Thierry Cohen’s “Darkened Cities” have been displayed in numerous galleries around the world. My Dark Sky dreams arise in the desert nights. To my good fortune, I own a patch of desert land outside Marfa, Texas, and it is not too far from the McDonald Observatory and Big Bend National Park, both in the heart of the largest International Dark Sky Reserve underway in Texas and Mexico. I often camp on the land, sleeping on a cot I have stored there. Or maybe I just leave the top down on the rented convertible (picked up at the El Paso or San Antonio airports) and fall sleep in the reclined seat. Either way, the Milky Way is above and I drift into sleep beneath the stars—often having Dark Sky dreams. I dream of visions with vistas. I dream of a living on planet where our species is united and cooperates as the enlightened species we hope to become. I dream of a future where our civilization embraces Dark Skies philosophy, where Dark Sky Reserves are established and expanded all over the world, and many are situated near our metropolises as we power down the nightly skyglow. I dream of the diversity of humanity organizing around a shared planetary-galactic narrative that minimizes consumption, where being a happy consumer is complemented by being a good ancestor—“now, now, now” is supplanted by a long-term narrative grounded in our deep pasts and deep futures. I dream of new rituals emerging where the Super Bowl and World Cup are countered with Milky Way festivals, theme parks are countered by observatories, shopping is rivaled by star-gazing, smart phones are challenged personal telescopes. If we can have iPhones, why not iScopes? (Okay, I am dreaming, like I said! But portable telescopes are already being developed for iPhones.) I dream of borders with no walls, nations with no enemies, peoples with no hatreds and prejudices. I dream of a healthy planet, a planet with clean rivers and oceans, with expanding wildernesses and massively larger national parks, all beneath ever darker skies. I dream of a sustainable civilization that is free of fossil fuels and mindless consumption, a future where knowledge and wonder are more valued than logos and brands. I dream of a species that funds art and science on far grander scales. I dream of a planetary civilization that has ended war, that goes into space as a single species, not as warriors, but as thinkers, artists, scientists, and tourists who protect the landscapes of the celestial places they visit. I dream of a collective consciousness inspired by art, science, and philosophy based on our actual place in the universe, as revealed by cool media telescopes and 21st century cosmology. I dream of a future born in the chill gaze. Philosophy Culture Environment Science Technology Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. 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