The images of space tell much more than they show it at first. Very aesthetic or impressive, they have a scientific value, but their political scope is not to be overlooked. Behind each photograph of the cosmos, there are brains reflecting on its impact on the public.
ESA, CSA, NASA, JAXA … Each space agency has its own visual communication: it allows you to put your “brand” in the photos or the synthetic images broadcast. There are even well -kept secrets in terms of colorization which allow these institutions to be directly identifiable.
The objective is notably to win public membership around major space exploration programs: “There are entire teams in space agencies that are devoted to this work, specifically. These teams are quite numerous, with graphic designers and communication teams. There is also the layout, the text, the technical aspects which are often also referenced, etc. Based in Toulouse where he works on the development of the James Webb space telescope.
“These spatial missions cost a lot of money: they also have an objective of affirmation of power. It goes through this communication. And behind, there is also the idea of affirming a certain power,” he said at the microphone of a whole world.
Symbols of supremacy
This involves establishing the power of states that finance these observation programs, and also the ideology they convey.
This was particularly the case during the Cold War: aerospace progress was used as symbols of the supremacy of political and economic regimes on both sides of the iron curtain.
>> Read these two large formats: 60 years ago, the Soviets launched the conquest of space et The fantasy of the moon
This continues of course nowadays with, moreover, state organizations such as the European space agency or the American. There is still the arrival of new private actors who, too, convey their own values and their own mark through their images.
This is the case of Jeff Besos and Elon Musk, nicknamed the “barons of space”; Both built their own visual universe, with spectacular stages and licked images. A trademark that sticks to their program.
Their first objective is obviously to find a place among the great space powers, but also in the political arena.
>> Lire : “Tech billionaires seize political powers” et How Elon Musk uses X to boost the European far right
These new competitors in the race for the conquest of space have a real strategy: ” their communication and the justification of their project are largely based on the emotional seduction of these images, “notes Joël Vacheron who teaches cultural studies in the visual communication department of the Cantonal Art School in Lausanne. He has just published”Cosmobisions – A visual study of the colonial foundations of spatial exploration “.
“I started this research a lot of years ago; the American political climate was not yet exactly what it is. But one could already see, in the words of Elon Musk mainly, this desire to get closer to politics and to produce in particular through the visions which are embedded in the images produced by Spacex, the vision of the future which cannot be cut off from contemporary political reality”, he analyzes.
Advocate the values of liberalism
Space X takeoff videos, for example, probably allowed the multimillionaire to prepare the ground for his arrival at the White House.
By massively disseminating its successes and even the failures of its various missions on its X network, Elon Musk clearly advocates the values of liberalism: ” It results from a purely political company of privatization of the space industry, passing through a cheesy of space agencies “, notes Olivier Berné.
“Finally, agencies like NASA, these are public structures that are very consuming of resources, which are very opaque, while it is public money. It is this speech that was pushed to its climax by Elon Musk and the DOGE, in its cutting company in all of the American federal agencies”.
>> Lire : Elon Musk’s bitter assessment in Doge
A certain vision of progress
Going up a little further in the history of space imaging, it is clear that, from its beginnings, it was politicized, manipulated and aestheticized to present a certain vision of progress or modernity.
A good example is the first photo of our land photographed in its entirety since space during Apollo 17, the last lunar mission of this program, launched on December 7, 1972.
Named “The Blue Marble”, in French, the “blue ball”, this representation published by NASA becomes iconic: “It is an image which is an extremely powerful symbol, which has been used for extremely diverse purposes, both to speak of ecological consciousness and to evoke economic globalization”, points out Joël Vacheron.
And to add: “It is also an image which, fundamentally, is part of a certain idea of seeing the earth from space. There is a fairly interesting detail: originally this image was not centered on the African continent, visible as we usually see on the Mappemondes [la photographie originale a été prise avec le pôle Sud tourné vers le haut, ndlr.].
For the author, this manipulation is interesting: “We have directly sought to reframe it according to cultural criteria. There, the stake is clearly very political from the moment when we question the speeches which were associated with the dissemination of these images”.
Over time, the images will become more and more licked, with representations which make the blue planet a precious object, almost an object of art.
An aestheticization that would almost forget the crises that burst on the surface of the globe and the fragility of our Terrethis little pale blue point lost in the vastness of the universe.
Sujet Radio: Sophie Iselin
Web article: Stéphanie Jaquet
