PAULA HUMBERG & JOSHUA BIRD Monochromatic Symptoms is a collaborative series that combines photography and poetry to explore themes around scientific imaging, human perception and colonisation of Mars. We approach the topic via imaginary research photographs and poetic notes written by a hypothetical “researcher”. Scientific imaging is concerned with recording and depicting objects in a meaningful way. As this may mean diverging from what people generally regard as “true”, the regular viewer can be left confused – especially when objects beyond the capabilities of our perception come into question. Astronomical imaging equipment capture invisible wavelengths, such as infrared light and gamma rays, resulting in images that lack colour. Post-processing frequently involves applying false colour – colour assigned to non-visible wavelengths. While there has been outcry from both the public and the scientific community over telescopic images of colourful nebulas and the like, the function of false colour is to make images more comprehensible. In her book Seeing like a Rover (2015), Janet Vertesi discusses practices relating to scientific imaging of the planet Mars. She introduces the concept of drawing as to describe how a researcher might modify an image to convey their interpretation of the image and its contents to other scientists. Thus, the researcher takes an active role in affecting the visual understanding of Mars. When going through photographs taken by rovers, satellites, and telescopes, we became absorbed by interesting details that resulted from the practice of drawing as: repetition, out of place colours, obscure markings. Whether this artistic dimension was unintentional or not, we were drawn to it as our point of collaboration. Humberg uses these elements to create photographs of landscapes, astronomical objects, and even tardigrades, for some species are used in astrobiological research. She employs a modified lumen printing technique. Negatives are printed on copy paper and exposed to analogue photo papers as contact prints. Developing is not needed, but prints are scanned and adjusted digitally. The process 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 esoteric, the extreme drawing as. Hills from the same negative appear both as an aerial satellite image and as landscapes with different colours, and the Milky Way explodes into a supernova-like hole. This deviation from the realistic is where the images meet Bird’s texts. What first appears to be research material on Mars, develops into ambiguous records of a postulated condition that rises from isolation and the monotone landscape. We suggest that, in the face of nonexistence, when days turn into sols, our researcher decays into madness and becomes a conduit for creating something artistic.
