Written by Daniel – If you haven’t read my post ‘Protecting Earth-Chan: Anthropomorphism of Astronomical Objects in Fan Art and Bodies‘, I recommend that you check it out. I’ll be continuing my exploration of the planetary ‘Chans’. These ‘Chans’ depict our solar system, the characters are original characters (meaning that they do not come from any existing copyrighted franchise, rather a love for an artistic style combined with a love for astronomical objects and bodies). The characters are inspired by a tweet posted by Trinimomortal, who proposed the idea of a show in which all the characters are the planets anthromorphised as school girls. The idea blew up among anime online communities, inspiring a hole host of fan art, videos and cosplay. What is perhaps most interesting about this community (from my perspective at least) is how these fan creators have agreed upon a consistent style, common narratives, and will see characters evolve and relationships change in response to news stories and scientific findings of the solar system and the universe beyond.
This post is an adaptation of the talk ‘Astronomical Objects and Bodies’ which I presented at Keele University’s ‘Creative and Applied Research Methods’ conference (2019). The purpose of the talk was to show some of the connections between the arts and the sciences, and how fan artists might show academics new methods of engaging with audiences. I open by looking at Gustav Holst’s The Planets, before swiftly moving onto the creativity of anime fans, arguing these fans to be a much more productive and culturally important discussion of the solar system, how we look after our own planet, as well as how we express ourselves to each other.
Composed between 1914-16, Gustav Holst’s The Planets is a suite influenced by astrological mythology rather than astronomical sciences. Earlier this year, Brian Cox hosted the centenary performance of The Planets. In this performance Cox discussed how our current understandings of our solar system and the universe might still be found in Holst’s work. Cox asks how we might interpret The Planets differently to how it was originally written, to investigate what discussions can be had between science and art? I intend to do similarly here, but instead of looking to the high art of Holst, I propose that fan communities are an important cite engaging with such discussion. So let’s begin where Holst does, on the Red Planet. The planet of war. The planet Mars. (more…)
FNORD 