Event

Jul 7, 2022
Constellations and Celestial Globes from the Islamic World: The Use of Virtual Reality Technology as a New Interpretative Tool

This is the fifth session of the Visualizations of the Heavens Lecture Series.

This talk will present a new and innovative approach to interpreting, visualizing, and engaging with Islamic celestial globes. Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, the talk will introduce an experimental project aimed at recreating in 3D the instruments of the Lahore workshop, with a particular focus on the seventeenth century, and Diya al-Din Muhammad’s celestial globes in particular.

Offering first an overview on Islamic celestial globes and their iconography from their classical prototypes to Islamic times, the talk will then concentrate on the Lahore scientific instrument makers and their celestial globes, focusing on the seventeenth century. It will present a reconstruction of the workshop, their tools, and offer an analysis of their iconographic motifs. It will show, in particular, how such globes can be placed in a virtual reality environment and “used” under a virtual starry sky. This cutting-edge technology, the talk will demonstrate, will make the manipulation and use of such objects more widely available for studying and teaching alike.

 

Address
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Room
Zoom/Online Meeting Platform
Contact and Registration

The meetings will take place on Zoom. The event is closed to the public, but MPIWG members are welcome and may register by emailing: brentjes@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

About This Series

The goal of the lecture series is to complement the image database that we have created over the last years by topic and region-specific lectures related to the history and culture of astral knowledge. 

2022-07-07T15:30:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2022-07-07 15:30:00 2022-07-07 17:00:00 Constellations and Celestial Globes from the Islamic World: The Use of Virtual Reality Technology as a New Interpretative Tool This is the fifth session of the Visualizations of the Heavens Lecture Series. This talk will present a new and innovative approach to interpreting, visualizing, and engaging with Islamic celestial globes. Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, the talk will introduce an experimental project aimed at recreating in 3D the instruments of the Lahore workshop, with a particular focus on the seventeenth century, and Diya al-Din Muhammad’s celestial globes in particular. Offering first an overview on Islamic celestial globes and their iconography from their classical prototypes to Islamic times, the talk will then concentrate on the Lahore scientific instrument makers and their celestial globes, focusing on the seventeenth century. It will present a reconstruction of the workshop, their tools, and offer an analysis of their iconographic motifs. It will show, in particular, how such globes can be placed in a virtual reality environment and “used” under a virtual starry sky. This cutting-edge technology, the talk will demonstrate, will make the manipulation and use of such objects more widely available for studying and teaching alike.   Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany Zoom/Online Meeting Platform Rana Brentjes Rana Brentjes Europe/Berlin public