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In Night Vision Pippa Goldschmidt writes about outer space and explores its multiple meanings as a place of awe and wonder to a more materialistic site in which scientific ideas are formulated and tested. This book explores space as a location of potential capital where commerce is being developed, leading to a new threatened 'enclosure of the commons'. Goldschmidt posits that outer space is not just a backdrop to our human lives, it connects us to each other through space-time, its ability to generate myths and stories, and our reliance on it to transmit information.
How we view and use space is narrated through the lens of Pippa Goldschmidt's own interactions with it: a child reading a guide to the night sky, an astrophysicist doing research on the most distant objects known in the Universe, a regulator of outer space using international and British legislation, and finally a writer. Night Vision argues that we need to understand the importance of outer space in all its various manifestations so that we can protect it, and ourselves, from exploitation. Just as we have destroyed natural habitats on our own planet, we are now at risk of doing the same to other planets.
About the author
Pippa Goldschmidt lives in Edinburgh and Berlin. She has a background in astronomy and is particularly interested in writing about science. Most recently she co-edited (with Drs Gill Haddow and Fadhila Mazanderani) Uncanny Bodies, a specially commissioned anthology of fiction and essays responding to Freud's uncanny. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in ArtReview, Tamarind, BBC Sky At Night, Mslexia, Times Literary Supplement, and Magma.
