Visible From Space

In this book Phiri's text and Rubsamen's paintings explore the visual and biological affects of 'Light Trespass'. Looking at the Earth from low orbit, they ask, what is visible from space? The answer seems to be consumer fantasy and private property. At night, the lights visible from space are from advertising, nearly half a million electrified billboards in the US alone, and the search lights and flood lights illuminating and protecting warehouses, factories, and chain store parking lots from theft and vandalism. Lights that articulate escapism and consumption and lights that articulate the boundaries of ownership and exclusion. What is evident to any thinking creature watching the earth at night from space is that light distinguishes rich from poor, have from have-not, secure from insecure and reality from make-belief. Hard bound with over 40 color photos this book investigates the new struggle, aesthetic, psychological and economic, between the 'Nocturnal' and 'Diurnal'.