Paper
Cover Essay: Stamping Soviet Cosmonauts, Craft, and Cosmos
Published Jul 1, 2023 · Rachel Hill
Technology and Culture
1
Citations
0
Influential Citations
Abstract
abstract:The cover image for this edition of Technology and Culture is a franked Soviet stamp. Despite its seemingly unassuming form, this stamp celebrates a pivotal moment in spaceflight history: the first woman to complete a successful orbital flight in space, Valentina Tereshkova. The image draws together cosmonaut, early spacecraft operations, and emerging understandings of the Earth's upper atmosphere, to succinctly illustrate Tereshkova's achievement. Examining the stamp reveals how spaceflight technology, public spectacle, and Soviet secrecy result in very specific aesthetic forms that fuse technical accuracy with flights of fancy. Tracing the trajectories of these (un)intended aesthetic forms, thinking through how they develop and transform over time, demonstrates how some histories of technology are best unearthed via visual means. In doing so, this essay prompts historians of technology to take note of visual analysis as an important but underutilized tool for their craft.
The cover image of this edition's Technology and Culture issue highlights the importance of visual analysis for understanding technology histories, emphasizing the importance of using visual tools in the field.
Full text analysis coming soon...