I went to the movies during the week and saw Gravity, and left it with headache due to lack of oxygen and a stiff neck due to the tension. It is a film that is not exactly based on a grand story, but on the experience of being lost in space - and that is very strong to a sensitive, easily scared person like myself. And it is totally clear that space is not a solution to the problems we have on earth; no one can hear you scream!

This movie made me think of medieval visions of space, googled a bit and found this nice little "UFO". It is a detail from a mural painting of the Crucifixion in Visoki Decani Monastery in Metohija (Kosovo) from 1350. It is placed to the right of Jesus above the head of Saint John and I would guess that it is a representation of a comet. The cosmos in medieval thought was a more controlled space than it is today, but it was probably as scary.

Celestial space in the Christian art is often associated with Heaven, especially when painted in gold (as was noted in my last blogpost). But of course it is more complicated than that. During the summer I read Dante's Divina Commedia in order to get some idea of the world view of the medieval culture. But I also needed aid from Margaret Wertheim's study The pearly gates of cyberspace: A history of space from Dante to the Internet (1999) to better understand the very concepts of the medieval cosmos. It was not as overwhelmingly infinite as it is today, since it was symmetrically centered around the earth and also connected to ideas of man and soul. Wertheim says that "Dante's Divine Comedy is the ultimate map over Christian soul-space." This soul-space was divided into three kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, and visuals trying to recreate the "geography" Dante's story shows this cosmos either i spherical or spiral form.

All his descriptions of the different kingdoms are very realistic and material, it is muddy, hot and stinky in Hell and the souls are often being painfully punished. Hell is placed under the earth, and Dante has to climb downwards to reach its darkest centre. Heaven is placed outside the realm of planets and stars. It is a space full of light and not as materially described as Hell and Purgatory, which is perhaps typical of human imagination. It is very hard to invent a place where there is no pain, no boundaries and where everybody is totally satisfied and content forever and ever, since it is not what we have experienced as human beings more than momentarily. Just take a look in any Christian artwork visualizing Heaven and Hell, I bet that the artist have been far more creative on the parts describing Hell. But Heaven is the goal for Christians and during the Middle Ages your soul was your ticket, and depending on your character, it might be quite a bumpy ride.