LE SUICIDE DE CASSINI

The video work Cassini’s Suicide (2017–2019) shows the American space probe Cassini, which burned up as planned when it entered the atmosphere of Saturn in September 2017. For the video, the artist included images provided by NASA, allowing for a combination of imagery from several sources: videos from the space probe take-off in 1997; photographs of the planet, its rings and moons shot from the space probe; animated images of the space probe. Like with Pliny the Elder, the Cassini story tells us how it is possible to get burnt by the very object of our study. The video also expands on the issues of the Anthropocene—the geological epoch in which the influence of human activity has become significant for the Earth system. It carries it into the realm of speculation as it takes the gaze off Earth and follows human tracks all the way into space. – Text: Sarah Mühlebach