Monochromatic Symptoms

PAULA HUMBERG & JOSHUA BIRD This collaborative effort began as the world started to isolate out of necessity. Instead of commenting on the current climate, we took to a more fictive conceit. A thought experiment placed us on Mars, inside the mind of a hypothetical researcher. Through their voice, expressed as notes that take the form of poems, and imaginary photographic research material, we ask what it would be like to study a monochromatic landscape where perceived movement is restricted to little else but the sun and sand. To the wider audience, questions like “what does it look like?” are at the forefront once it comes to the exploration beyond our own planetary confinement. The answer is sought from the perspective of a displaced human: If I stand on Martian soil and gaze at the horizon, what do my eyes see? But the human perception is limited to a small portion of all wavelengths. If looking at the sun wasn’t so forbidden, we would see it as a white, featureless disc and not as a raging orange sphere. The latter vision comes from “false colour” images that make ultraviolet and other wavelengths visible to us. While scientific imaging is about conveying information in a meaningful way, this doesn’t mean complete lack of aesthetic view. Whether purposeful or accidental, scientific photographs can look “pretty.” But as we dug deeper into photographs taken by rovers or satellites, we became absorbed by emerging details: repetition, out of place colours, and obscure subjects and markings. Humberg uses these elements to create photographs of landscapes, astronomical objects, and even tardigrades, for some species are used in astrobiological research due to their cryptobiotic abilities. She employs a modified lumen printing technique: Negatives are printed on copy paper and exposed to aged analogue photo papers as contact prints. Image appears during extended exposure time and no developing is required, although chemicals can be added to tweak tones. Finally, prints are scanned, and further adjustments made digitally. The process itself functions as a semi-random filter that highlights different aspects and enables variable repetition. As the series progresses, there is a gradual shift towards the more esoteric. Hills from the same negative appear both as an aerial satellite image and as a landscape, and the Milky Way explodes into a supernova-like hole. This deviation from realistic is where the images meet Bird’s texts. What we first theorised to be research material on Mars, develops into ambiguous records of a postulated condition that rises from lack of external stimuli, similar to the effects of a deprivation tank. We suggest that, in the face of nonexistence, when days turn into sols, our researcher not only decays into madness but becomes an accidental conduit for creating something artistic. Then, so-called true colours mutate to alternate hues that no longer tell of scientific discoveries but of the human condition.