Controlled Orbit: Making the Astronaut the Subject

Réka Patrícia Gál introduced the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden to the “first strike in space” in her videocast presentation. In her conversation with Andrew Erickson (doctoral researcher at the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden), she used the example as a case study to demonstrate how even astronauts in space are continuously monitored through data that has been extracted from and claims to represent them, and how this functions to co-create subjectivity and reality.  The discussion then turned to questions of surveillance, the sociopolitical imaginaries that underpin beliefs in what data are and can represent in and about the world, and the value of humanities methods to unpack, analyze, and problem-solve issues surrounding the failures of technological systems to adequately serve human populations who depend on them.