TEST SHEET139: 2021- 2022 : TERM: 1

DATE: 08.7.21 SUBJECT: ENGLISH TOPIC: Commentary Paper1 TEST TYPE: ____ MARKS: 25

NAME: _______________________ CLASS / DIV: A2 A B C ROLL NO. : ___ INITIALS: SK

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Section B: Text analysis

Question 2
Read the following text, which is a review of a virtual reality experience designed by the sculptor
Antony Gormley.
Analyse the text, focusing on form, structure and language. [25]

The moon is deeply embedded in our artistic culture – we sing about it, write about
it, make films about it and in return it affects our very being through its lunar cycles.
It’s been 50 years since man took his first steps on our nearest planetary neighbour.
Since then, only 12 astronauts have done so. Now, we too can get a taste of what it’s
like to walk on the moon thanks to a virtual reality experience designed by the esteemed 5
sculptor Antony Gormley.

The 12-minute feature begins, on donning the VR headset, on the white beach of a
beautiful south-sea island, deserted save for a few crabs scuttling through the sand.
It’s the only simulated part of the experience and is based on islands such as Kiritimati
and Kiribati in the Indian Ocean that are destined to become the first casualties of global 10
warming due to rising sea levels.

Using your head to alter your direction and a button on a handset to stop or go, you can
wander through the vegetation, even submerge yourself in the water, before you are
thrust upwards through the earth’s stratosphere and into space. From here, everything
is rendered as accurately as possible using data collected by NASA. All the constellations 15
you see are real and in the right place. You see the sun, the moon and, most poignantly
the familiar Earth-rise view of our own blue planet.

Your body has become its own spaceship. Antony Gormley’s sculptures have long
investigated the relationship of the human body to space. His works, most famously
the Angel of the North in Gateshead and Another Place on Crosby Beach, have 20
confronted fundamental questions of where man/woman stands in relation to nature
and the cosmos.

(For Private Circulation Only. This Material is not Copyright Free)

F/M&M/EP/4.9 Page 1 of 2
“As a sculptor, I have a responsibility to see how my sculptures relate to space,” he
remarked in a chaired discussion before the preview. “Here is an extension of our
reach into the visual that can deal with the exponential realities of space.” 25

After hovering in space for a while, you land on the moon. Once again, the topography
has been rendered as accurately as possible. You feel the weightlessness by being
able to bounce up and down in the near-zero gravity. It is by virtue of the moon’s lack
of atmosphere that it has been bombarded by asteroids and sculpted by cosmic forces
to pockmark its surface with craters, the average diameter of which is 80kms. The highest 30
mountain on the moon is some 2kms higher than our Mount Everest.

Its fun bounding along amid the craters, sometimes descending into them, at other
times trying to navigate your way past them. You feel the sense of isolation evoked
through the contrast of the barren rocks and craters and the view of a colourful Earth
hovering in the distance. It’s a desolate environment, yet at the same time leading to a 35
sense of awe.

After a few minutes, you feel yourself being sucked up out of the moon’s orbit and
further into outer space where you pause to survey the vast panoply of shimmering
galaxies and vast star clusters around you. It was the only time at which I felt a hint of
vertigo. Lunatick ends in a white-out as you approach the heart of our solar 40
system – the sun.
As a VR experience, Lunatick has none of the gimmicky ‘wow’ factors that I’ve seen
in other VR works. This is partly because it’s a serious subject based on real data
as opposed to fantasy but also because it is limited in its resolution by the data given
by the lunar orbiter when mapping the moon. The bandwith to do the project in higher 45
definition given its scale is simply not there at the moment.
If the project is to progress, the collaborators agree that it won’t be a question of
trying Mars, Jupiter or Saturn next but instead using new developments in what is, after
all, a still nascent technology, to improve on what they have achieved so far.

What I did get from Lunatick was a sense of perspective and a reference point for 50
our place in the cosmos. Up there in the firmament, surrounded by stars and planets
that defy the imagination in terms of their number and magnitude, I got a sense of our
insignificance in the great scheme of things. Yet, within our own planet, we are highly
significant by the way we have developed the means not so much to destroy the Earth
but to take away its propensity to sustain life. 55
Antony Gormley put it well when he described the moon as “the ghost of what we
could become”. And, for me, Lunatick hit that message home above all else.

(For Private Circulation Only. This Material is not Copyright Free)

F/M&M/EP/4.9 Page 2 of 2