Description: Refracted Spaces: An Archaeology of Optics
Filipa César and Louis Henderson imagine the lighthouse lens as a departing point to unfold a critique of Western epistemologies informed by optical technologies, as military and colonial design. The projection of light and its Enlightenment(s) are embedded in the imperial and violent gestures and processes of discovering, shedding light, grasping, comprehending, framing, revealing and possessing. As counter-gesture, this research seeks lines of flight towards the shadows by upholding a politics of opacity. Expanding research conducted for their collaborative film, this lecture-performance maps a trajectory from historical methods of optical navigation to new algorithms of locating, from singular projection to multi-perspectival satellitic visions.
FILIPA CÉSAR AND LOUIS HENDERSON