Astronauts oftentimes reported about a strange and overwhelming sensation they felt when they first looked back on Earth far away from space. In the cosmic perspective, the planet they spent their whole life on seemed like a pale blue marble or a tiny dot. National borders disappeared and global conflicts looked irrelevant. The sight from tens of thousands of kilometers away made man infinitesimally small and at the same time revealed every living being as part of one organic unity; this experience evoked caring feelings for the Earth, which were similar to a parent’s worry for their child. Feeling their own insignificance, the astronauts’ general fright was growing as well as their sense of responsibility for their environment.
Miklós Surányi’s photo series constructs a big picture upon the Earth similar to this, making the feeling called overview effect experienced by the astronauts accessible to the greater public. He collects found views and builds poetic compositions out of everyday objects into his inventory: the starry sky appearing at the end of a drinking straw; an inkpad as a gaping black hole; the light of a solar eclipse passing through a keyhole; a piece of tarpaulin in the colors of the surface of the Moon; etc. This simulacrum-collection of his is powerful enough to achieve a cognitive shift in awareness just as the cosmic glance down on the Earth from outer space is; only his images are devoid of the pathos of the latter.
Emese Mucsi