Joseph Horton - Both Shadow and Substance

Joseph Horton

Both Shadow and Substance

In 1965, a NASA satellite named ‘Mariner 4’ weighing half a ton captured 21 photographs of the planet Mars. These became the first detailed images of another planet within our solar system that was not our own and changed the way we saw our solar system forever.

(July 15, 1965, NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This is the first close-up image ever taken of Mars. This shows an area about 205 miles (330 km) across by 746 miles (1200 km) from the edge to the bottom of the frame. The area is near the boundary of Elysium Planitia to the west and Arcadia Planitia to the east. The hazy area barely visible above the limb on the left side of the image may be clouds. As a species, we have since landed 10 successful unmanned spacecraft on the surface of the Red Planet; beginning with ‘Viking 1’ in 1976, which marked the beginning of a new visual perspective that would allow us to be positioned at the planet’s surface. Introducing a world that looks so familiar, yet incomprehensible in its position from us. With a minimum distance of 33.9 million miles, this tiny red dot in our night sky had now become a tangible and relatable space, solely through the capturing of a photograph. These first images sent back to Earth by the ‘Viking 1’ mission on July 20th, 1976, revealed the planet’s surface in a black and white photograph of the rovers immediate ground space. From this, we had a detailed picture of what the planet’s geology looked like, just as if we too could look down at our feet and observe the soil around us. The ability of the rovers’ cameras to democratise the planet is one of the reasons we have been able to become so invested in this space, with their lenses acting as an extension of ourselves. This new extra-terrestrial window transporting us to the Martian landscape, in the way only the photograph can do, and then presenting us with a space that blurs the lines between the figurative and the real.

(August 02, 2004, NASA/JPL-Caltech )

This self-portrait of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity comes courtesy of the Sun and the rover’s front hazard-avoidance camera. The dramatic snapshot of Opportunity’s shadow was taken as the rover continues to move farther into “Endurance Crater.” The image was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004), a date that marks achievement of fully double the rover’s

In 2003, we saw the landing of the first two roaming vehicles - rovers Opportunity and Spirit, travelling a collective distance of 32.8 miles across the Martian landscape. These two rovers acted as intrepid adventurers, sending back some of the first high resolution imagery that brought the Martian world closer than ever before. With panoramic cameras fixed at the height of the average person, we increased the relationship between ourselves and the rovers’ bodies, bridging the gap between viewer and mediator. We have no physical experience of this landscape and so, when confronted with these images, it is a testament to the extent that the photograph can generate or enable an experience of such a place.

The phenomenological aspect of photography cannot be more heightened than when picturing this landscape, they are descriptions of the very edge of our physical reaches. Through the highest resolution images that render the surface, they increase how much we can experience the planet and in doing so, brings us closer to its soil.

The landscape that we look out across, with its desolate, unspoilt and uncomplicated horizon, is now our sole frontier and unlike our terrestrial land; it exists as myth through its photographic visualisation as our inhabiting witness. During the expansion into the American west, the paintings made by the likes of Thomas Moran often incorporated a figure, a subject to bear witness to the over-whelming scale of their environment. Moran’s work now hangs in the White House, representing a triumph over ‘wild’ spaces and as testament to the great beauty of the American landscape. With the implementation of the photograph on Mars, the figure is replaced by the image itself and the perspective now placed on the viewer. The rover is a host for the viewer, we can imagine its journey in the vastness of space, just like the figure in the paintings by Moran. When I view the images of the Martian landscape, I not only feel in awe of the technical accomplishments achieved in creating them, but I feel I can understand them.