Remote Sensing

‘Remote Sensing’ is a multidisciplinary response to the artist’s archive of original 4 x 5 inch negatives and 16mm films produced by NASA during the Gemini era and collected by the artist over several years. The images were originally produced as an integral scientific component of rocket manufacture in the early 60’s and offer a compelling window into a pivotal era of the twentieth century. They transport us back to the moment in time just before Apollo 11 and the lunar landing that would have such a technological, aesthetic and media impact on our collective environmental consciousness.

The refigured images on display in this exhibition have been altered using both darkroom and digital processes to create hybrid forms that reflect on the imbrications of the industrial and elemental in the scientific process. They speak ultimately to human frailty and the precious nature of life on earth, rather than any sense of modernist hubris. This body of work also includes experimental photograms and other ‘re-photography’ from the archives of mid-century human space flight.