Photon Infrastructures

Mediating the Universe through Astronomy
Paddy Edgley

Astronomy is cosmological work. It is about getting at and making visible those parts of the world that are usually sequestered beyond the bounds of unaided vision. In the sense that it is about gaining access to layers of reality that are otherwise beyond our experience, astronomy is also infrastructural work (Allain 2011; Hoeppe 2018). Different means and conditions for mediating the content of the sky has the potential to give rise to, and account for, the many different interpretations of its contents that we find across cultures and throughout history (Silva 2015; Ruggles 2010). In scientific astronomy, it is flows of photons, traversing the gap between distant cosmic objects and people, that constitute this cosmic infrastructure.

By exploring the techniques and technologies that allow those people to engage with and manage these flows, our attention is drawn to the phenomenological engagements that make such an understanding possible (Idhe 2010), and these sites of mediation become places where the universe is made available for social research. By attending to the social and practical conditions under which the scientific cosmos is made visible, and in particular the ways in which these flows of photons are managed and made appropriate for this objective vision, we might shed light on how the scientific cosmos is experienced and made tangible by people on the ground.

Architectures and Infrastructures