Concepts Of Simultaneity

2011.
16mm film. Color and sound. 15’22’’. Loop.
Exhibition view and stills.

This film is made of hundreds of images of varying quality, gathered from several astronomical institutions across the world, capturing astronomer’s travels en route to observe solar eclipses.

These scientific expeditions could take months and were surrounded by personal experiences that astronomers and technicians lackadaisically captured in hundreds of hours of video and photographic recordings. Such documentation, discarded from the merely scientific accounts, reveals the mobilisation of human and technical resources to places where amateur ethnographic interests were uncritically awoken. The short duration of the total eclipse, the ultimate goal of these enterprises, is contrasted with the larger social and cultural aspects permeating such long-term ventures. The apparent banality of some of the images bears witness to residual moments of otherwise lofty narratives about progress and civilisation made possible thanks to non-symmetrical imperialistic international relations.

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