CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Mia Bennett Modeling the apocalypse: Satellites and spaceborne epistemologies of the end-of-times
At CAPAS, I propose to undertake a research project contributing to understandings of apocalyptic and postapocalyptic imaginaries. I seek to understand how catastrophes at a range of scales, from local disasters to planetary climate change, are imagined, depicted, and modeled with the aid of satellite imagery, and what effects these visualizations have on scientific and public understandings of the apocalypse. This research project has three objectives. First, the project seeks to situate satellite imagery within the history of epistemologies and visual cultures surrounding the apocalypse. Core to this objective is an understanding of satellite imagery as both scientific data and an art form that is central to contemporary scientific and visual cultures. Second, through an ethnography of science involving semi-structured interviews carried out in Germany and Austria, this research aims to explicate how scientists view satellite imagery and related models portending massive environmental changes, as well as how they communicate models suggesting catastrophic scenarios. Third, the proposed research will critique the role of satellites in constructing a specific view of Earth in the Anthropocene.