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Short abstract:

Experimental short film (run time 19 minutes; viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR51ao6-_OQ)

Abstract:

How have Western non-governmental experts used remote sensing to make public knowledge about the Iran and North Korea nuclear programs? From 2018-2020, I conducted ethnographic research to examine how nonproliferation experts gather around satellite images to uncover hidden nuclear objects on distant landscapes. I encountered expert practices that wove optical sensor datasets together with popular orientalist themes to inform public debates about nuclear dangers. But in the winter of 2021 – the pandemic winter – I was unable to continue in-person participant observation. So instead, I turned the lens inward. Holing up in a remote woodshed in rural Northern Michigan, I surrounded myself with all the cameras I could find – the webcams, GoPros, and old iPhones of everyday life – to create my own miniature constellation of optics. With cameras rolling, I used discarded objects from past lives to build a physical map of the epistemic community I had studied and tried to locate my own positionality in relation to the subject of my research. I then edited the resulting footage to produce video notes for the following articles:

C.C. Lawrence (2020), “Heralds of Global Transparency: Remote Sensing, Nuclear Fuel-cycle Facilities, and the Modularity of Imagination,” SSS 50(4):508-541 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312719879769)

C.C. Lawrence (2024), “Gathering Around a Satellite Image: Visual Media Cycles of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Complex,” SSS (accepted; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvlG3HAfxCuRDKAhU8TBKVxVc-_ES5Rm/view?usp=sharing)

C.C. Lawrence (working paper), “Muscle Memories of Revelation: Extending the Imaginative Exercise,” submitted to 4S, Amsterdam (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V262BA5s9cjExVk2y8etFr3ed0O4ReHC/view?usp=sharing)

The video will be followed by brief oral summary of the articles.