Sensing Landscape as a Media Object

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Published: Jan 31, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.16.148-173
Keywords:
Estudios de ciencia y tecnología, Estudios del paisaje, Medios digitales, Geopolítica, Percepción remota Science and Technology Studies, Landscape Studies, Digital Media, Geopolitics, Remote sensing

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Saadia Mirza
The University of Chicago

Abstract

Array-based remote sensing has been influencing knowledge practices across many fields, from geology, military planning, and archaeology to landscape architecture and artistic research. These uses have been made possible by declassified image-data and the proliferation of sensing technologies, enabling myriad interpretations of a single landscape. Following a series of remotely-sensed landscape visualizations created via training and conversation with archaeologists, in this article I reflect on using satellite remote sensing for analyzing the impact of militarization on archaeological landscapes in Afghanistan. The article surveys techniques of image generation using exploratory practices that reveal how obscurity is overcome in the process of image interpretation and visualization. In doing so, it tackles the liminality of digital, image-like worlds where mediated perceptions of landscapes aid the creation of evidence for sites that are physically inaccessible to fieldwork. The entanglement of aesthetics and objective knowledge marks this foray into a landscape of data that is composed of digital, virtual, and computable surfaces with imaginations of territory, topography, and terrain that have a materiality of their own, despite being intangible.

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How to Cite
Mirza, S. (2020). Sensing Landscape as a Media Object. Diseña, (16), 148–173. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.16.148-173
Issue
No. 16 (2020): Testing Against The World: What do tools do (for you) in Experimental Knowledge Infrastructures and Practices?
Section
Original articles

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Author Biography

Saadia Mirza, The University of Chicago

B. in Architecture, National College of Arts. Master of Design Studies, Harvard University. PhD Candidate, The University of Chicago. Visiting researcher, Sciences Po. Her research is situated at the intersection of Landscape Studies and the History of Science, Media, and Technology. Her research methods mix archival and ethnographic research with the production of immersive and spatial media installations. She treats sounds and images as the objects as well as tools of her research, scratching their surface to excavate a history of how expert knowledge is formed in a world of incomplete information. Her academic research and artworks have been supported through fellowships at Sciences Po, ETH Zürich, and the University of Chicago Center in Paris, as well as through artist residencies at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart) and Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris).