Abstract:

Planetary landscapes are drawn by sensing devices and their data, stretched out over great distances and scales. In different distances to the planet and with different speeds, satellites make their path around the Earth. Against language of the photographic shots, this presentation discusses how satellite images can be understood as compositional drawings. It focuses on drawing as an expanded form of line-making to investigate satellite vision. The focus is on different processes of data gathering and interpretation and as processual and layered process in their specific relation to lines and the infrastructures of visibility. Orbital trajectories and signal paths—such as in selected cases of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery––are considered as relevant forms of line-making that a conceptual framing of drawing can bring into view. The aim is to develop a methodological framework that contributes to discussions on satellite data literacy, revealing line-making as a fundamental operation within remote sensing practices as a spatial and temporal process more broadly.

Bio:

Lilian Kroth is a post-doctoral researcher at the Philosophy Department at the University of Fribourg, where she is a contributor to the projects Aerial Spatial Revolution and Seeing like a Satellite (Swiss National Science Foundation), engaging contemporary theoretical perspectives on remote sensing technologies. Lilian Kroth received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2023 with a dissertation on concepts of ‘limits’ and ‘boundaries’ in the work of French philosopher of science Michel Serres. Before that, she studied Philosophy (BA/MA) at the University of Vienna and Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Selected recent and forthcoming publications include Remote sensing and feminist critique: Reappropriations of sensing across distance (Environment and Planning: F, 2024); Entropy and Entropic Differences in the Work of Michel Serres (Theory, Culture & Society, 2023); REDEFINING LIMITS. entropy and a new natural contract (Angelaki, 2024), Alignments. Drawing as a Way of Thinking––A Response to the Work of Michel Serres (KrautIn Verlag Berlin, 2025), and Michel Serres: Limits and Passages (forthcoming with Bloomsbury Academic, 2026).