Appendix 1 - The Flowering Desert Creative Process
In this appendix I have chosen materials, reflections or transcriptions from key pieces of work, or workshops, that were carried out during the creative and performative process of developing the opera The Flowering Desert.
Appendix 1: The Flowering Desert Creative Process
AP 1.1 Cycle 1: Jan-April 2020
AP 1.2 Cycle 1: Short Story - The Flowering Desert
AP 1.3 Cycle 1: Online Workshops and Outcomes April 2020-February 2021
AP 1.4 Cycle 1: Exploration through Performance and Film: March - June 2021
AP 1.5 Cycle 2: Leading to the Performances in May 2022
AP 1.1 Cycle 1: January -April 2020
AP 1.1 Notes from the Initial Discussion with Dr Amaury Triaud (January 2020):
In our first meeting with Dr Amaury Triaud many of the themes we carried on working with for the final piece were brought up and discussed. As such it was a pivotal moment in the creation of the work, inspiring the future directions of the narrative, characters and music.
Many of the themes and viewpoints I had already extracted from reading around the topic were reiterated in the meeting with Dr Triaud and the discussion of the TRAPPIST-1 discovery. There were some key points I made note of during this discussion which I then planned to make use of whilst putting the libretto together. These were:
- The TRAPPIST telescope is at the La Silla observatory in the Atacaman desert in Chili. Amaury was there to witness the flowering desert. He also told us about the percussive sounds of the ice in the trees. In addition, he found many ancient hollow stones with markings, which he believed to have been used as instruments by the previous civilizations in the region.
- The discovery of the first planet was actually an accident. The telescope had not been working so the scheduled viewing times were delayed. This meant that an unplanned later viewing was carried out when the telescope started working again. During this unscheduled slot, which was the first time this telescope had even been used to view a star, the first transit was seen. To back this up we were also told that at one point they observed and saw no transits.
- One of the main goals of the field is to find out if there is other life, or how common other life is. The discovery that the type of star that TRAPPIST-1 is – a cool M dwarf – can have a multi-planetary system, with planets within a habitable zone, has expanded the way that scientists see this search for life. These M dwarfs make up the majority of stars in our universe whereas our sun is a minority type star (G type main sequence star). This makes the understanding and studying of the M dwarf stars even more crucial to this work.
- Humans try and make solutions out of their experiences. Astrophysics should be a field in which we are open to thinking about understanding outside of the human experience.
- M Dwarf stars have far longer life spans than G type main sequence stars. Red dwarfs can exist within a main sequence stage for trillions of years. Our G type star will live one cycle across 9-10 billion years. This gives an M Dwarf system a different conception of time, as their life cycles are so much bigger.
- The planets around the TRAPPIST-1 star are tidally locked, meaning that one side is always facing the star and the other always facing away. This also has implications on the meaning of time in this system. The rim that is at constant sunrise/sunset is called the terminator. They are planets of dichotomies.
- There would be severe winds and weather systems on these planets (if they have atmospheres) due to the heat moving from the hot to the cold side.
- The TRAPPIST-1 system has an orbital resonance between the planets. This is the largest discovered system of planets with such a resonance chain.
- The TRAPPIST-1 system is comparable to Jupiter and its moons. Jupiter also experiences an orbital resonance and the sizes and distances of everything are similar.
- The orbital periods of the planets are always slightly changing as the planets have a gravitational pull on each other, affecting their orbits.
- Even though the planets in TRAPPIST-1 receive a lot of radiation it is possible for life to start in or underneath the crust.
- Scientists in Cambridge have been working on how certain exposures to specific UV radiations can actually lead to a creation of DNA through formation of hydrogen cyanide.
- Panspermia is a theory for how life could start on a planet: this is the idea that life could be precipitated by a collision with a rock that is carrying the materials and building blocks for life.
Following this discussion, I read the papers Dr Triaud had suggested and also read through as much as possible of the Exoplanet Handbook (2018) he had lent me, to get a better grasp of the topic. Alongside this scientific material I researched the existing artistic references to the TRAPPIST-1 system. I also found a series of very accessible handbooks on different exoplanet systems by Mathew Anderson, which helped in deciphering a lot of the technical language, as well as showing an example of how to discuss this topic with the general public.