UB Students Build their own Exoplanets

25 University of Bridgeport students were recently sucked into a wormhole and transported to distant reaches of the universe.  The students all crash-landed on separate planets, and now NASA wants them to report back: What kind of planet are they on?  Is it habitable?  Is there intelligent life?  How are they holding up under the strain of being in an alien environment?  And what are the chances that they will ever make it back to Earth?

This is the set-up for a recent assignment in FTDM 183, Special Toics in Film.  The class is titled “Earth and Other Alien Worlds,” and it encourages students to examine representations of planets in movies and in the cultural imagination.  According to Dr. Randy Laist, who teaches the class, “The fact that we live on a planet is one of the most fundamental facts of human existence.  At the same time, however, it’s very difficult to conceive of the planetary scale.  It overwhelms our conceptual abilities, which have evolved to operate within local, tribal parameters of a dozen square miles and about 150 people.  We need representations – globes, maps, satellite imagery, GPS programs, and scientific diagrams – to access this crucial dimension of our reality.  And, since the earliest days of filmmaking, movies have played an important role in representing our planetary condition.”

In their pursuit of this topic, students in the class watched the 1902 silent movie A Trip to the Moon, the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, and Stanley Kubrick’s Masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.  They also read works by cultural theorists, exoplanetary researchers, and environmental activists about approaches to theorizing “planetarity.”  But then it became the students’ turn to imagine worlds of their own, projecting themselves out into the universe to grapple with their own ideas about the perils and possibilities of planetary dwelling.

Some of the students found themselves on utopian worlds characterized by peace, love, and empathy.  Kiana Gibson-Anyafulu’s (freshman majoring in General Studies) planet, Anaik, is a world that celebrates “the idea of being accepting toward every living creature’s uniqueness.”  On Joshua Jackson’s (junior majoring in Business Administration) planet, Caratina, “everyone can be their true selves without being judged for it.”  Christian Nazaire’s (junior majoring in Finance) planet, Discogroove, resembles a giant disco ball, and the indigenous aliens, the Groovians, are “vibrant and iridescent and have groovy personalities,” even if they sometimes slack off on their farming duties from too much partying.

Other interplanetary explorers, however, found themselves in much less groovy circumstances.  Samantha Nokes (junior majoring in Pre-Dental Hygiene) crash-landed on Ferros, a planet where the native plants emit toxic ammonia, and, since she has cracked her space helmet, it doesn’t look like she’ll survive.  Ever since Peter Vigo (Sophomore majoring in Psychology) landed on Cyroterra, he has been haunted by an eerie feeling of dread that he can’t explain or shake off.  One of the most nightmarish worlds visited by these explorers, however, is certainly Metu Mortis, John Panzera’s (freshman, undeclared major) planet, which confronts visitors with their worst fears, as if you were “stuck here for eternity reliving your worst nightmare endlessly.” 

Other students visited planets that are simply uncanny or surreal.  On Luke Russo’s (freshman majoring in Business Administration) planet of Cranium, visitors magically become younger.  Glen Medina’s (Sophomore majoring in Computer Science) planet, Terravita, is inhabited by giant animals.  Josiah Holder’s (freshman majoring in Biology) planet, Semblance, is a world where the landscape and organisms are altered in response to the emotional charge of events that take place on its surface, so that, in a region where a war has taken place, the plants and animals and ground itself absorbs and reflects the violence and negativity.  At the same time, Josiah believes, humans could “seed” Semblance with positive energies to turn it into a paradise.  On Britney Arpi-Tenesaca’s (sophomore majoring in Pre-Nursing) planet, Aurora, humans and robots live together in a society where science and spirituality work together to create harmony between nature and technology.

These interplanetary explorations express the nature in which thinking about planets activates our imagination to envision new worlds, while simultaneously reflecting aspects of our own condition as “Earthlings.”  These far-flung worlds also reveal the creativity of UB’s students, who have populated these distant worlds with their own hopes and fears, their own expectations and anxieties, and their own dreams for the future. 

Maybe the most intriguing of all the students’ exoplanets is the one visited by Brendan Palmer (sophomore majoring in Human Services), the Purple Knight, a planet where the aliens are friendly, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the future looks bright.  Palmer’s visit to this fascinating new world has convinced him that “the Purple Knight is the future of human civilization.”