Skyscapes are a combination of landscape, sky, and people in the context of a full place experience. To achieve a deep and engaging place experience emotional attachment is needed; going beyond the mere spatial awareness and exploring the temporal dimension of location. When a viewer becomes aware of rhythms in sky and environments memories and history unravel. The viewer enters a dialogue with place and experiences skyscape through watching. Exploring this dialogue is important to then allow for an exploration into the meaning of a skyscape.
This is a progress report on an interdisciplinary project exploring place and skyscape of Clifton campus at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). A phenomenological approach will identify locations on Clifton campus where panorama reveal memories and an affectional dimension as well as where the night sky can be watched and cosmic rhythms felt. The panorama will be implemented into a planetarium software (Stellarium) to experience the passage of celestial objects in time.
The phenomenological approach has identified places that offer a wealth of memory contained in the built environment and will generate a map of place experiences. The next step is to capture such temporality in appropriate panorama. Especially Stellarium offers through its landscape feature a creative anvenue that goes beyond the simple photogenic or photo realistic panorama towards a canvas onto which experiences can be captured and later explored in conjunction with celestial cycles. As such this project illustrates capabilities of planetarium programs often overlooked but essential when creating a skyscape experience.