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The Sky Commodified
MIT Architecture Department

The sky has become a data mine. This data is now mediated through a complex infrastructure of instruments and apparatuses that help us navigate, surveil, image, and store databases for billions of stars. As astronomical data is the only other dataset comparable in scale to YouTube and Twitter, global tech corporations are competing to host astro-data on their cloud. Amazon claims that by having access to observatories’ huge datasets through hosting would allow the development of their AI, comparing an astronomer’s search for two to three stars in our galaxy to targeting advertisements to two to three people, tracking potential shoplifters or catching fare-evaders on public transport. Looking out into space could be thus seen as a commodity, as an act of governance much more focused on developing methods of surveillance here on earth than providing answers to our existential questions.

‘The Sky Commodified’ studies the astro-industry in the Atacama Desert using three lenses, each engaging a different scale. The immediate scale investigates the physical building, the architecture typology of the observatory and drawing on its rich historical lineage of form and experience. The infrastructural scale analyses the growth of astro-tourism in the Atacama region, from the local indigenous entrepreneurs and sky-guides, to the foreign observatory hotels, to the international megaprojects such as ALMA. The meta scale explores data-mining and astronomy as a global industry engaged by the tech sector.

‘The Sky Commodified’ was produced in partnership with MIT Architecture, had its worldwide premiere at the Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival 2019 and has been screened internationally at various film and art festivals. The movie is now distributed digitally through Doc Alliance Films.

directed by: Locument, Maya Shopova
produced by: MIT, Architecture department
co-directed with: Aaron Powers, Dijana Milenov, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Kevin Marblestone, Jaya Alba Eyzaguirre, and Prathima Muniyappa
director of photography: Diego Cabezas, Dubi Cano Reyes, Francisco Lobo
sound design: Eric Maltz
music: Carlos Cabezas, Eric Maltz, Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, Nicole L'Huillier