Experimentations 12 | Images of Broken Light: Indexicality in Astronomy II

This showcase presents a series of films related to astronomy that examine how scientific knowledge depends on traces left directly by natural phenomena themselves - so-called indexical images. Before being ideas, scientific theories are themselves constituted by image making. With computer-generated imagery, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize the indexicality of the film image, mainly because of simulation. In the case of scientific films, this issue is even more delicate, as the image requires a direct recognition of reality, under penalty of not constituting scientific evidence. With increasingly aestheticized images, scientific images in turn are captured from distant spaces, through sophisticated hybrid technologies, very different from the optical array images of telescopes. This screening intends to present an overview of films considered scientific, with educational intentions on astronomy since before the invention of cinema, so that the most diverse film techniques used by filmmakers and scientists in different eras can be appreciated.

The program will be followed by a panel with Jane de Almeida, Lilly Husbands, Eames Demetrios, and Brian Jacobson in person, and filmmakers Derek Jenkins, Anna Sigrithur, and Joel Penner on Zoom.

A free dinner will be available after the panel!

Presented as part of Los Angeles Filmforum's PST ART: Art & Science Collide public screening series Experimentations: Imag(In)ing Knowledge in Film.