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，只是星星的普遍奇观的“观看室”，一个个体身体溶解的虚空。当这个假设扩展到整个景观时，它就转化为-字面上-黑箱思维，即黑暗景观中的结构和安排变得无法检查。这在许多层面上都是有问题的。它强化了科学的“客观”和谦逊的“谦虚的见证者”的霸权，一个主要是白色欧洲男性人物（Haraway，1996）。它延续了启蒙时代光明（性）、知识和善良之间的持久联系，这被用来证明“将光明带入黑暗”的殖民项目是合理的。将黑暗景观视为“空白空间”的概念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。随着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，这项研究将走向对黑暗天空公园的后殖民理解，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间活动的。目前，与黑暗的地面（以及明亮的天空）接触的黑暗天空公园旅游可能带有普遍的殖民主义和军国主义欲望的痕迹。人类在黑暗中无法“看到”而不依赖夜视技术，其中许多是在军事背景下开发的，其目的是检测无形的，危险的和非人性化的“其他”。事实上，业余夜视设备经常在网上销售，作为追捕不明飞行物或超自然活动的一种手段。夜间活动的物种，其他身体和运动的印象，通过这些技术的媒介在黑暗的天空公园里瞥见，如何承担外星人，超自然或目标敌人的危险和差异？我们如何开发新的夜视技术，克服这种军事化的视觉，让观众观察他们自己参与人类、非人类和设备的复杂网络？随着Dark Sky公园数量的增加，它们处于一个重要的交叉点，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“看”视为一种积极的观点交流：一个涉及技术，人类和动物的协作过程。它会将某些夜视的例子视为Despret所说的“主体间性”的例子：人类和非人类能力交叉的成就。根据Despret的说法，能力不是天生的，而是可以在相互接触时扩展和交换的。我将扩展Despret的定义，包括设备，实验一系列记录技术，以有趣的方式与人类和动物的主观性相互作用。Despret认为，不确定性是主体间性成就的一个重要前提，因为它允许互动的目标不断重新谈判。从记录黑暗中遭遇的实际挑战中汲取见解，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.