Photographs from Outer Space. A Female Archaeology of Image-Data

December 11-13, 2023
Università degli Studi di Milano
Sala Napoleonica (via Sant'Antonio, 12)

(find here the extended program)

Keynote speakers: Aurora Sissel Hoel, Peter Galison

Conference abstract. Look at a photograph of your choice. What is the medium you are inspecting? What is proper to it? A longstanding, honourable tradition has viewed the direct connection between the shot and the instant, the experience in the present and its recording for any future time as its distinctive trait. Recent research has questioned this link. The advent of advanced digital techniques presents us with “photographs of the future”, crafted by algorithms, and photogrammetric images that can be explored from various perspectives. Even predating the digital revolution, and irrespective of it, an extensive scientific domain contributes to unveiling an alternative perspective on the photographic. From the moment cameras pointed skyward, the awareness of the insurmountable gulf between the mechanical eye and the celestial expanse challenged the notion that photography inherently embodies the simultaneous presence of the observer and the observed. Astrophotography perennially navigates the delicate boundary between recording and visualization, as well as between the human and the posthuman. It challenges the operator to decipher visual traces, which extend far beyond conventional notions of representing celestial bodies and yet provide indispensable clues to unravelling their astrophysical identities. The “cultivation”, measurement, and digitisation of these photo-signals from elsewhere historically became a female task. Women astronomers, often referred to as “computers”, were a flesh-and-blood version of the calculating machines that were to become established in the following decades — they constitute an archaeology incarnate of the digital. Rediscovering their role, re-locating their figures somewhere between that of the art curator and the engineer, also means to explore a female archaeology of the postphotographic image. This conference, characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, unites media archaeologists, image theorists, historians and philosophers of science, women’s studies scholars, and artists delving into the nexus of astrophotography and visual culture.

Curated by Barbara Grespi and Luca Guzzardi (Università degli Studi di Milano, Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti”)

Scientific committee: Christa Blümlinger, Gabriele D’Autilia, Rossella Catanese, Marilisa D’Amico, Bernard Geoghegan, Giulia Giannini, Jussi Parikka, Andrea Pinotti, Antonio Somaini, Matteo Vagelli

Organising committee: Rosa Cinelli, Rossana Galimi, Melania Mariconda