Agnieszka Jelewska

The essay critically discusses the use of remote sensing technologies in contemporary media art and sciences. It undertakes a thorough analysis of Tropics, the award-winning work of the French artist Mathilde Lavenne. The artist used lidar scanning to visualize the stories and memories gathered from interviews with inhabitants of the Mexican town Jicaltepec, who are mostly descendants of the French settlers-colonizers. Through the use of apparatus designed for architectural and geodetic purposes, along with its scientific and commercial contexts, questions arise about the relations between modern technoculture, nature, cultural memory, and overlapping colonial logic, in knowledge production and the micropolitics of affects management.

The article discusses the strategies and research methods used within the community science paradigm developed by the Public Lab group. The workshops and practices of scientific cooperation with local communities are discussed on the example of the Public Lab’s founding project – monitoring the effects of an ecological disaster related to the oil spill from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The methods used to conduct the research were based on the local community’s involvement and led to the establishment of new models to disseminate data and scientific knowledge in which local participants play a crucial role and have access to essential measurement data. The article discusses the DIY method’s applications, the technique of experimental cartography and mapping performed using meteorological balloons and kites. The community research methods are juxtaposed with the contemporary contexts of the evolving blue turn in the humanities, social sciences, and media practices.

* Artykuł powstał w wyniku realizacji projektu badawczego „Sztuka jako laboratorium nowego społeczeństwa. Kulturowe konsekwencje przełomu post-technologicznego” (kierownik: A. Jelewska) nr 2014/13/B/HS2/00508 finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki.