FutureSpace Talk 12 | Victor Buchli

Low Earth Orbit and Perfectibility

Abstract

In this talk I want to reflect on Low Earth Orbit as a realm of perfectibility. The theme of the perfectible has emerged consistently throughout the various ethnographies of the ETHNO-ISS project.  The talk will consider how the perfectible emerges as an important trope within the human inhabitation of LEO and space in general and considers the anthropological legacy of perfectibility from its emergence in 18th century anthropological Enlightenment era thought to its emergence again in the anthropology of space in the 21st.  It will focus in particular on the perfectibility of manufacturing in microgravity and the new forms of material culture emerging on the International Space Station.

Bio

Victor Buchli Is Professor of Anthropology at University College London and Co-Director the UCL Space Domain. He is PI of the ERC funded ETHNO-ISS project which examines the inhabitation of Low Earth Orbit and the International Space Station.  He is the author of An Archaeology of the Immaterial (2015), An Anthropology of Architecture (2013) and An Archaeology of Socialism (2000) amongst others.