THIS AGGREGATE OF IMAGES THAT IS THE UNIVERSE (STARS)
film installation, 26 min., 2025 
perforated screen, 210 x 280 cm

The film installation This Aggregate of Images That Is the Universe (STARS) takes its viewers from an observatory in the Peruvian Andes to an archive in Cambridge, from the surface of the Earth to the depths of the starry sky. Critically examining the socio-political histories of an archive of photographic glass plates from the Institute of Astronomy at Harvard, the film situates the production of scientific knowledge in the context of contemporary forms of data extractivism. Based on the reenactment of the laborious working process in which so-called 'human computers' have manually registered and categorised photographic data, the film traces processes of extraction (of labour and resources) and erasure (of other kinds of knowledges) that underlie imperialistic scientific projects.

The installation is presented as a film projection on a perforated screen which is based on the star constellation Small Magellanic Cloud.