Night Vision: Intersubjective possibilities in Dark Sky areas in the UK

近年来，保护黑暗天空免受光污染的全球运动在规模和范围上迅速发展，1990年建立了“黑暗天空运动”，导致英国各地的几个“黑暗天空公园”获得认证。然而，该运动强调保持夜空的可见性，倾向于强化这样一种观点，即黑暗的景观本身就是虚无的景观，仅仅是宇宙奇观的“观景室”，一个个体身体溶解的空间。当这种假设扩展到整个景观时，它字面上翻译为黑箱思维，因此黑暗景观中的结构和安排变得无法检查。这在很多层面上都存在问题。它强化了科学的“客观”和谦逊的“谦虚目击者”的霸权，这些人主要是欧洲白人男性（Haraway, 1996）。它延续了启蒙时代光明、知识和善良之间的联系，这被用来证明殖民项目“将光明带入黑暗”的合理性。黑暗景观的概念是“空白空间”，危险地类似于殖民主义下对土地的掠夺和对第一民族的暴力企图。越来越多的研究将殖民主义、启蒙运动和环境破坏联系起来，这项研究将朝着对黑暗天空公园的后殖民理解方向发展，这也为非人类的观点提供了空间。毕竟，超过一半的物种都是夜行动物。目前，黑暗天空公园的旅游确实与黑暗的地面（以及明亮的天空）有关，可能带有盛行的殖民主义和军国主义欲望的痕迹。如果不依赖夜视技术，人类就无法“在黑暗中看到”，其中许多技术是在军事背景下开发的，其目的是探测不可见的、危险的和非人性化的“他者”。事实上，业余爱好者的夜视设备经常在网上销售，作为寻找不明飞行物或超自然活动的手段。夜间活动的物种，其他的身体和运动的印象，通过这些技术的媒介，在黑暗的天空公园里瞥见，如何承担感知到的危险和外星人，超自然或目标敌人的他性？我们如何开发新的夜视方式来克服这种军事化的视觉，让观众能够观察到他们自己在人类、非人类和设备的复杂网络中的参与？随着Dark Sky公园数量的增加，它们处于一个重要的交汇处，这个基于实践的研究项目对于概述视觉实践的形式至关重要，这些视觉实践将“观看”视为一种积极的观点交流：一种涉及技术、人类和动物的合作过程。它将把夜视的某些实例视为Despret所说的“主体间性”的例子：人类和非人类能力交集的成就。根据Despret的说法，能力不是天生的，而是在彼此接触时可以扩展和交换的。我将扩展Despret的定义，将设备包括在内，用一系列记录技术进行实验，这些技术以有趣的方式与人类和动物的主观性互动。Despret认为，不确定性是主体间成就的重要先决条件，因为它允许不断重新协商互动的目标。从在黑暗中记录遭遇的实际挑战中获得见解，我将探索黑暗天空公园在多大程度上迫使人类主体摆脱完全清晰的幻觉，进入理解模糊、不确定和主体间性的领域。

The global movement to protect dark skies from light pollution has grown rapidly in scale and reach in recent years, with the establishment of the Campaign for Dark Skies in 1990, leading to the accreditation of several 'Dark Sky Parks' around the UK. However, the movement's emphasis on preserving night sky visibility tends to reinforce the idea that dark landscapes themselves are landscapes of nothingness, merely 'viewing rooms' for the universal spectacle of the stars, a void in which individual bodies dissolve. When this assumption is extended to entire landscapes, it translates - literally - to black-box thinking, whereby structures and arrangements within darkened landscapes become unexaminable. This is problematic on a number of levels. It reinforces the hegemony of the 'objective' and self-effacing 'modest witness' of science, a largely white European male figure (Haraway, 1996). It perpetuates a persistent enlightenment-era association between light(ness), knowledge and goodness, which was used to justify the colonial project of 'bringing light to darkness'. And the conception of dark landscapes as 'blank space' dangerously resembles the seizure of land and violent attempted erasure of First Nations peoples under colonialism. Adding to a growing body of research that draws connections between colonialism, the enlightenment and environmental breakdown, this study will move towards a post-colonial understanding of Dark Sky Parks which also makes room for non-human viewpoints. After all, over half of all species are nocturnal. Currently, Dark Sky Park tourism that does engage with the dark ground (as well as the illuminated sky) may bear traces of prevailing colonialist and militaristic desires. Humans cannot 'see in the dark' without being dependent on night vision technologies, many of which which were developed in military contexts within which their purpose was to detect an invisible, dangerous and de-humanized 'other'. In fact, amateur night vision equipment is often marketed online as a means of hunting down UFOs or paranormal activity. How might nocturnal species, other bodies and impressions of movement, glimpsed at night in Dark Sky parks through the medium of these technologies, take on the perceived danger and otherness of the alien, paranormal or targeted enemy? And how might we develop new forms of night vision that overcome this militarization of vision, allowing viewers to observe their own participation in complex networks of humans, non-humans and devices? With Dark Sky parks at an important junction as they expand in number, this practice-based research project would be crucial in outlining forms of visual practice that recognize 'seeing' as an active exchange of viewpoints: a collaborative process involving technologies, humans and animals. It would consider certain instances of night vision to be examples of what Despret terms 'intersubjectivity': achievements at the intersection of human and non-human capabilities. According to Despret, capabilities are not innate, but can be extended and exchanged when they come into contact with one another. I will expand Despret's definition to include devices, experimenting with a range of recording technologies that interact in interesting ways with the subjectivities of humans and animals. Despret argues that uncertainty is an important prerequisite of intersubjective achievements, as it allows the goal of the interaction to be continuously renegotiated. Drawing insights from the practical challenge of recording encounters in darkness, I would explore the extent to which Dark Sky parks force human subjects out of the illusion of total clarity, and into terrain where understandings are murky, uncertain, and intersubjective.