Cycle 2: LUMI — Visual Sovereignty and the Defence of Landscape

What we are trying to achieve

Cycle 2 of Unsecurities Lab builds on the proposition that immersive artworks can function as environments for rethinking security. This workshop focuses on how contemporary planetary imaging systems—from satellites to synthetic photogrammetry—are reshaping the way landscapes are seen, interpreted, and secured. By bringing together participants from cybersecurity, environmental science, AI humanities, planetary sensing, and defence, the session investigates a pressing shift: from physical terrain to latent space geopolitics. What forms of knowledge, control, and vulnerability emerge when landscapes are treated as datasets rather than places?

What is the focus

The workshop unfolds in two interconnected parts:

Part 1 centres on a screening and expanded engagement with LUMI, a film by Abelardo Gil-Fournier and Jussi Parikka. The film explores how synthetic light, environmental restoration, and satellite vision intersect to form a new planetary aesthetics—one rooted in control, remediation, and machine learning. Participants will consider how vision itself becomes a mode of governance, and how the albedo effect (the reflectivity of planetary surfaces) links light to climate security.

Part 2 immerses participants in a 180º image environment composed of satellite timelapses and archival visual materials from Abelardo’s Earthology project. Drawing on historical references such as WWI aerial photomosaics and mobile field laboratories, this surround-stage acts as both context and provocation. Participants are invited to reflect on the evolution of landscape intelligence—from hand-assembled images of trench warfare to machine-generated maps of environmental crisis.

Together, these components prompt an urgent question:

What does it mean to defend a landscape that is not only remote—but synthetic, reconstructed, and shaped by algorithms?
The Lab invites participants to interrogate visual infrastructures as sites of instability, exploring the politics of dataset curation, AI in painting, image spoofing, and environmental speculation. Collaboratively, they will analyse and prototype scenarios in which visibility itself becomes contested territory.

Artist Bio — Abelardo Gil-Fournier

Abelardo Gil-Fournier is a Spanish artist and researcher whose work examines how landscapes are constructed, interpreted, and governed through visual technologies. Working across synthetic imaging, machine learning, and environmental media, he investigates how photographic traditions intersect with planetary sensing systems. A frequent collaborator with theorist Jussi Parikka, Gil-Fournier’s practice explores how time, prediction, and material infrastructures shape the visual politics of Earth observation.

Confirmed Attendees

• Andrew Dwyer – Cybersecurity
• Basil Germond – Marine Security
• Carolyn Pedwell – AI Humanities
• Rolien Hoyng – Planetary Sensing
• Mark Wright – Innovation & Research
• John Innes – Defence
• Sam Kinsley – Geography & Technology
• Charlie Gere – Digital Culture
• Lena Podoletz – Crime & Technology
• Kwasu Tembo – Speculative Philosophy
• Mal McMillan – Earth Observation
• Suzana Ilic – Coastal Dynamics