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

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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.