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Reading Nature, Observing Science: Examining Material Practices in the Lick Observatory Archives and Kenneth S. Norris Papers

Exhibition at UCSC Special Collections

This digital exhibition is the culmination of a year spent processing the archives of the Lick Observatory and the papers of UCSC Environmental Studies Professor, Ken Norris.

The exhibit considers these two collections through the historical construct of the “book of nature”; we are interested in how science has treated nature as a text that can be understood through objective practices of “reading” and which must be carefully reproduced and analyzed through objective modes of graphic representation. In these archives, we witness the genesis of new technologies and methodologies for reading and recording the book of nature. We can see how scientists respond to the capacities and limitations of these new technologies and methodologies for observing and representing the natural world. In the two archives, we also see two very different understandings of the natural world and the place of humans within it.

In addition, these archives help us to account for an alternate historiography of scientific observation, which considers objectivity as a constructed ideal rather than a natural capacity. We are particularly interested in how new technologies and different modes of observation generate new aesthetic ideals and knowledge formations that give shape to practices of scientific observation. As we observe astronomers and naturalists at work in these collections, we can see how objectivity is negotiated by aesthetic considerations and material practices.

Lastly, the focus on material practices allows us to consider the work of these scientists in context: in relationship to changing technologies and ideologies, and in relationship to students, animals, amateur scientists, laborers, diplomats, and craftsmen who all contributed to the knowledge produced.

Contents of this path:

This case contains a chest of slides from Norris's slide collection, along with a handwritten inventory. The slides in this case document various species of lizards, snakes, frogs, and toads, as well as desert habitats. However, the slides themselves do not actually correspond to the titles on the inventory. As the majority of these slides are dated 1948, they are representative of Norris's work in desert ecology during his studies at UCLA.
The images on the top shelf of case 5 display a selection of astronomical illustrations from the Lick Observatory archives. Notably, the archives contain sketches and correspondence from famous astronomical illustrator Étienne Trouvelot. Did the ideas and images offered by artists like Trouvelot have an impact on the way astronomers at the Lick perceived the cosmos? Can astronomical illustrations count as factual data? When observing the cosmos, can objectivity be disentangled from aesthetic experience? Click the above link to read more about this topic.
The middle and bottom shelves of case 5 display documents, images, and objects related to the early astrophotographic work of the Lick Observatory. Is it possible to obtain "objective" representations of celestial objects like galaxies and nebula when their details are invisible even in the telescope? How were Lick astronomers' ideas about the objectivity of the camera filtered through the aesthetic concern to produce visually stunning photographs? How is our idea of the reality of the cosmos--then, as now--a matter of aesthetic expectations created by certain standards and conventions of representation? Click the above link to read more.